landusepbb
03-30-2004, 07:07 AM
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0329northwestforest-fee-ON.html
Forest Service drops 385 sites from controversial fee program
Associated Press
Mar. 29, 2004 01:20 PM
EUGENE, Ore. - Hikers, birders, and picnickers will no longer have to buy a Northwest Forest Pass to visit 385 sites in Oregon and Washington, starting May 1.
The U.S. Forest Service will drop that many trailheads and other areas from the fee program, reducing the total number of day-use sites that require a fee payment to 679 in the two states.
No-fee sites in the two states will rise to 1,681.
The revision - one of the biggest changes since the agency began imposing the fees six years ago - is part of a new policy to make the fees more consistent nationwide, and to mainly have fees at sites with more amenities, such as restrooms, picnic tables and fire rings.
Agency officials say the changes have nothing to do with the bitter complaints about the fees from Oregon and Washington residents. In the past two years, the Forest Service has issued hundreds of tickets to residents for failure to display the passes.
Some residents have spent months fighting the citations.
As part of the latest change, forest officials added a few pay sites after the review showed they should be charging fees in places that they weren't, including some locations in the Umpqua and Siuslaw National Forests.
Although scaling back the region's fee sites is bound to be popular with the public, it will leave forests with fewer dollars that directly benefit those recreation areas, said Laurie Thorpe, an assistant recreation fee director at the agency's regional headquarters in Portland.
"Most of them will be scrambling to look for other funding sources," she said. "Our appropriated sources are just not adequate, so we'll be looking for partners, grants, that sort of thing. But over time, our backlog of maintenance grows."
In some cases, trails dropped from the pass program may not be maintained at all.
"We just won't have the funds to do it," Thorpe said.
Forest Service drops 385 sites from controversial fee program
Associated Press
Mar. 29, 2004 01:20 PM
EUGENE, Ore. - Hikers, birders, and picnickers will no longer have to buy a Northwest Forest Pass to visit 385 sites in Oregon and Washington, starting May 1.
The U.S. Forest Service will drop that many trailheads and other areas from the fee program, reducing the total number of day-use sites that require a fee payment to 679 in the two states.
No-fee sites in the two states will rise to 1,681.
The revision - one of the biggest changes since the agency began imposing the fees six years ago - is part of a new policy to make the fees more consistent nationwide, and to mainly have fees at sites with more amenities, such as restrooms, picnic tables and fire rings.
Agency officials say the changes have nothing to do with the bitter complaints about the fees from Oregon and Washington residents. In the past two years, the Forest Service has issued hundreds of tickets to residents for failure to display the passes.
Some residents have spent months fighting the citations.
As part of the latest change, forest officials added a few pay sites after the review showed they should be charging fees in places that they weren't, including some locations in the Umpqua and Siuslaw National Forests.
Although scaling back the region's fee sites is bound to be popular with the public, it will leave forests with fewer dollars that directly benefit those recreation areas, said Laurie Thorpe, an assistant recreation fee director at the agency's regional headquarters in Portland.
"Most of them will be scrambling to look for other funding sources," she said. "Our appropriated sources are just not adequate, so we'll be looking for partners, grants, that sort of thing. But over time, our backlog of maintenance grows."
In some cases, trails dropped from the pass program may not be maintained at all.
"We just won't have the funds to do it," Thorpe said.