Forest Service discounts recreation fees

Critics call temporary reduction ploy to gain congressional support

N.S. NOKKENTVED, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published November 24, 2001

OLYMPIA -- Critics of the 5-year-old recreation fee program say holiday discounts on recreation passes are a way to boost sales to convince Congress to make the program permanent.

The Olympic and Gifford Pinchot national forests are offering season tickets to national forest recreation areas -- known as the Northwest Forest Pass -- at $5 off the regular price of $30 through Dec. 31. Single-day passes still are $5.

Federal land managers say the program helps pay for recreation maintenance.

It is used to replace toilets, bridges and picnic tables, not to prove anything to Congress, Forest Service spokesman Rex Holloway said.

"I'm not sure what we'd be trying to prove," Holloway said from the Pacific Northwest regional office in Portland.

The discount comes at a time when pass sales typically are at their lowest, and the discount is simply a way to boost sales, he said. They make a great holiday gift, and the agency still is trying to get the word out that people need a pass in some areas of the region's national forests.

In addition, sales this time of year bring money in early and help in laying out budgets for the coming year, Holloway said.

The passes are required for parking at some national forest trailheads, camping areas, boat launches, picnic areas and visitor centers in Oregon and Washington and the North Cascades National Park Service Complex. About 80 percent of the money collected is used where it was collected to maintain recreational facilities. Officials are reassessing the sites included in the program.

In the Olympic National Forest, the pass is required only at trailheads and the money is used to maintain trailheads, trails and trail bridges.

"This is an opportunity to get the word out and increase awareness about the Northwest Forest Pass program," said Harv Forsgren, Pacific Northwest Regional forester. "The cost savings encourages people to buy their Northwest Forest Pass early, before visiting the woods."

But critic Scott Silver of Bend, Ore.-based Wild Wilderness said the promotion is a thinly disguised effort to boost the numbers of ticket sales to convince Congress to make the program permanent.

"The more passes the Forest Service sells by the time Congress takes up this issue next spring, the more likely that Congress will permanently authorize recreation user fees next year," Silver said. "And if the fee program is permanently authorized, as some special-interest groups would like, then the Forest Service can charge whatever the market will bear for the commodified recreational products, goods and services that the agency and its private partners will provide."

The three-year recreation fee demonstration program -- known simply as fee demo -- was approved by Congress in 1996 and later extended. The most recent extension would continue the program through September 2002.

But Silver and other critics bristle at being charged a fee to walk on public lands -- land they already own. Tax cuts and wasteful spending, such as money-losing timber sales, show that the country could easily afford to maintain recreation facilities on public lands, they say.

Charging money for recreation keeps some low-income families from enjoying lands their taxes help support, Silver maintains.

The fee-demo program is the mechanism Congress has given the Forest Service to pay for recreation maintenance instead of increased direct appropriations.

"I don't see us here in the Pacific Northwest dropping the program," Holloway said.

N.S. Nokkentved covers the outdoors for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5445.

Northwest Forest Pass

Discounted passes are available at Olympic National Forest offices in Olympia, Forks, Hoodsport, Quilcene and Quinault, and at Gifford Pinchot National Forest offices. For information, call 800-270-7504.

On the Web:

- Gifford Pinchot National Forest

- Olympic National Forest: Northwest Forest Pass

- USDA Forest Service

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