NO PUBLIC OR CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW, YET
Coalition: Forest Service Working Silently on Plans That Could Close Thousands of Recreation Sites
By Bill Schneider, 8-30-06
My inbox is full every morning, but this morning is was full of really bad news, mainly a long report from the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition. In the six-page report and accompanying press release, the coalition, which has been the main force in fighting the RAT (Recreation Access Tax) being rapidly imposed and enforced on national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands, blasted a secret plan by the Forest Service to close or privatize vast numbers of recreation sites, even the majority of the sites on some national forests.
In the report, the coalition charges that since at least 2002, the FS has been secretly implementing a policy initiative called Recreation Site Facility Master Planning (RSFMP) that threatens to impose a for-profit model on the management of all developed recreation sites on America's 155 national forests.
"The RSFMP program is going to send shockwaves through National Forest gateway communities nationwide," said President Robert Funkhouser in the press release. "This will impact local communities' economies, public health, and quality of life."
Funkhouser pointed out that among the management actions planned or already underway are removal of toilets, capping of drinking water systems, and bulldozing of campsites.
According to the coalition, no public or congressional review of the RSFMP policy has yet occurred. Although 22 Forests have completed five-year RSFMP site closure plans and implementation has begun, none of the plans have been publicly released. The coalition actually obtained two complete plans Deschutes and Tongass National Forests) and partial information about three more forests. From the data available so far the coalitions projects that between 3,000 and 5,000 recreation sites will be closed or decommissioned, and as many as 4,000 more will be converted to fee sites or turned over to private for-profit concessionaires to manage.
I called the Northern Region offices of the FS in Missoula and talked to Terry Knupp, regional coordinator for this program. Clearly, the Northern Region is not the focal point of the coalition's criticism because the process is moving more slowly and cautiously. Also, Knupp assures that there are some plans to involve the public at least on site-specific decisions. "We have a responsibility to keep the public safe and to keep these sites healthy," Knupp points out.
According to Knupp, national policy coming from the Bush Administration, not any Act of Congress or official administrative rule, is requiring the preparation of the RSFMP plans. The Northern Region (Montana and northern Idaho) plans to have the plans done be the end of next year. Standards have been set, Knupp explains, and each site must be operated to those standards. If there is a toilet at a trailhead, for example, it needs to be cleaned regularly.
If there isn't enough money in the budget to operate to standards, Knupp says some action must be taken, such as closing the recreation site, removing facilities, turning it over to a concessionaire, or getting volunteers to operate or clean the site. Another option is charging a fee, but unlike other FS regions, the Northern Region has been cool on this idea.
Also, apparently, the Northern Region is better off, budget-wise, than other regions. "It's early in the process, but right now it doesn't look like we will have to remove many facilities in order to operate to standards," Knupp predicts. "It doesn't look like we have to take drastic actions."
But the coalition report contains damning details from other regions. In Oregon's Deschutes National Forest, for example, only 14 out of 212 existing developed recreation sites will remain open and free to public use. The rest will be closed and obliterated, converted to fee sites or turned over to private concessionaires.
Ditto for three Colorado national forests where the same fate awaits 72 percent of the developed recreation sites.
The basic objective of the secret plans, according to the coalition, is to make all recreation sites "sustainable," which means they must generate enough income to pay for themselves. If not, they must be closed, obliterated or turned over to the private sector for management.
In the report's conclusion, coalition calls on national forest users to demand that the RSFMP plans be subjected to public comment and review as specified in the National Environmental Policy Act, just like forest management and travel plans. The group also called for Congress to scrutinize the program to ask for an audit of FS recreation spending compared to appropriated funds.
"It is imperative that this secret policy see the light of day," concluded Funkhouser. "This is a drastic change to National Forest recreation management that should not be allowed to proceed behind closed doors."
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Like to receive our print magazine, The New West? Click here for free subscription information.
Comments
That need to be told to the President..What Would Teddy Roosevelt Do.....
He would put the Toilet brush and trash bags in the hand of the community service children and say Clean constantly...!! Save our parks....All lesson must be learned just like in the "Old West"..
Many of these recreation sites are accessed via roads built by the logging industry, but paid for by the Forest Service. Without the Forest Service footing the bill, logging in these areas would have been economically unviable for the logging industry. Call it "welfare logging" if you like.
But thse same sites, now that they are being accessed by recreationalists, are viewed as burndensome expenses by the FS; they must be brought to pay for themselves! we hear.
Well, I'm fine with "multiple-use," but how is it that one use is subsidized, while another must be made into a for profit enterprise?
The report talks about the Chief and his claim that unmanaged recreation is one of four threats to forest health. What the report leaves out is that his focus is on unmanaged OHV use, not dispersed sites favored by hunters and fishers and the like. This threat is being addressed by the Travel Management Rule not RSFMP.
The report also says that dispersed sites used by 2/3 of visitors are threatened with closure, this is simply not true, they are not a part of RSFMP, it only focuses on developed sites.
The report also leaves out the fact that more than dollar signs comes into play in ranking the sites. The process is nowhere near as cut and dry as they make it out to be. And importance to local communities is a big piece of the pie.
The Forest Service is just trying to make the most efficient and effective use of its dwindling budgets.
Don't believe the hype.
I intend to go away from developed sites given away to profit seekers and car camp for free on my land.
If you want to run a for profit campground buy your own land.
I agree with the hypocracy of net loss to the government forestry operations and the give away the minerals with the public usally ending up paying most of the cost of clean up.
Using concessionaires as one leg of the three legged stool along with public managed sites and free, very light public serviced sites may have to be tolerated but I support strong standards for the concessionaires, strong enforcement and investigation to ensure political influence does not seep in.
Seems like the Republican are always looking for a way to use government resources to give themseleves or a friend an unfair advantage to make money. Haliburton, Jack Abrahmoff, Duke Cunningham, etc. etc.
The eventual trillion dollar war in Iraq is where the cost cutting needs to be focused.
Paul there are plenty of out of the way, not as developed sites that I seek to get away from crowds and to avoid being charged three times as much by a concessionaire for a site not that much better.
Concessionaires can be part of the solution, but the Forest Service needs to maximize service to the public and capital investments and maintenance of the sites. The concessionaires can earn a modest profit if they do well but my experience with these sites tends to be a cash drop box and a camp host holed up in their trailer except to collect fees or not on the site at all half the time.
More organizations should look into stepping up and entering into these contracts to avoid them all closing or going to for profit concessionaires, raising prices and disencouraging healthy enjoyment of our public lands.
It has always seemed, in part, a way to strike back at environmentalists, discourage the creation of more of them.
In any case, I think it's a fair assumption that had the current "privatization-happy" administration not been elected, the Forest Service would not now be considering this plan. You guys that hunt (I don't, not very much anyway) and fish (I do, a lot) should be screaming over all of these attacks on our public lands. Why? Because big wild places have the best hunting and fishing, that's why.
Not all concessionaire are scalpers. I see variation. I guess they run up the price at popular sites because the market will pay it and it helps cover the cost of other marginal sites.
I am still not sold that it is a better way of running the campgrounds but set in the larger context I understand how it has happened.
Paul says the process will be thorough and sound. Folks should watch and be involved to try to ensure it is.
End result might not be as severe as initially indicated but only way it isnt is thru viligence and participation.
The main advantage I see to concessionaire run campgrounds is low wage hosts, lower than Forest service scale & benefits. I guess there is a supply of retirees willing to do that and it is working ok but I am not particularly thrilled with eliminating professional land management positions and the good they can do in the campground, in the forest, in the minds of visitors.
I dont know how much the FS spends to do administer and do oversight on concessionaire but would be surprised if it effectively sweeps out any savings suggested at site operation level. It wouldnt surprise me if concessionaire operations with full cost accounting actually lost money. I hear underreporting and undersharing of campground revenue with the federal government under the terms of the contract is something of an issue.
I work along a "scenic and recreational" River. I have seen empty Forest Service campgrounds all summer, while non-paying people camp with their tent-pegs six inches from the moving riverwater right under the "NO FIRES" and "NO CAMPING" signs. And the woods are festooned with toilet paper. Not a one of the fools knows what a trenching tool is used for, nor what 50' from the water means.
Right down the road is a boat-ramp, with pay-to-park and an outhouse so filthy people are using the woods around it. It used to be cared for by the park host from the ajoining, nearly empty campground. I hear there is no longer a host for each campground. (aren't they volunteers?) but only one host to three campgrounds. Still, if everyone cleaned up after themselves.........
Why don't we just take care of what we have, be it outhouses or campgrounds, and enforce the laws we already have that are meant to protect the camps and the woods? Maybe people in general are such slobs that closure looks like a reasonable option to many.
I'm not saying privitization doesn't ever make sense; it sometimes does. But it's certainly preferable to have government people doing the stuff that the government does best - the stuff that's for the public good, not for profit.
Here's another thought - do something. If you can't volunteer or otherwise work for change, at least vote your interests this November and take the time to comment on Forest Plans. Griping at the Forest service serves little purpose - they can only do what their budgets allow them to do. They can shift some funds around (like from one campground to another), but they have to use what trails money they get on trails, developed recreation money on developed recreation, etc.
I don't like the privatization of it too much either, but I'd rather see them open and managed to a higher standard than closed completely.
And Gary, just because they are out of the way sites doesn't mean they will be shut down, like I said, a lot more than just dollar signs goes into the equation.
They are our places, lets participate, the FS is just a phone call away...
Liz
Privatization may have kicked in gear by mid 90s, in part because of Clinton and his objectives but I forgot to mention Republican take over of control of Congress. They wrote the budgets that passed and probably directed the Forest Service to go further down this path.
It isnt eactly on topic but I'll throw it out anyways. I wish the Forest Service were moved to Interior Department to integrate all the public land management agencies under one roof. Doesnt mean change of missions but might make coordination a little better.
The forest Service is not a phone call away. I have tried to particpate in the past and on this...and guess what, they don't give a damn. They (like you) have made a career out of public land managment, and so they manage our land, to their and their boss's beauracratic standards that way Back in the fine details, are meant to address real issues brought up by citizens like me.
But the nincompoops have so lost perspective that they see my comments and suggestions as threats to 'progress'. I have been thrown out on my ass from more than one public meeting because I would not sit down until a regional officer answered my question. I have been threatened with arrest for asking how management plans comply with federal laws and pointing out that they dont.
I didn't even get a chance to find out that this RSFMP process existed until it was a done deal, and when I asked who made the decisions as to what was an up to "standard" for recreation site, I was told that decision was made in Washington back in 2002, and they don't really know who made the definition and they cant tell me exactly what the standard is.
Can you Paul?