“Privatization” and Forest Service Recreation Again..

Here’s an essay from High Country News called:

Privatization threatens an Arizona national forest

When I think of “privatization” I think of something a bit more far-reaching than concessionaires… but OK, it’s an attention grabbing headline. Here are my questions for discussion:

What do you think about the use of concessionaires in recreation?

If you were the Forest Supervisor what would you do?

If you were the Chief what would you do?

What do you think keeps the FS from getting enough recreation funds?

Why don’t recreation groups get together and lobby Congress for enough funds?
Hypothesis: too busy debating each other to unite?

Here’s a website I found that points out some of the benefits of concessionaires, especially in this economic environment.

Here are the presentations from the 2010 NFRA conference.

Privatization threatens an Arizona national forest
Essay – April 29, 2011 by Kitty Benzar

Once upon a time, the Western public lands — places like our national forests and parks — were supported with American tax dollars.

In return, we were welcome to use them. Undeveloped areas required no money to enter, and developed facilities were basic but affordable. Land managers were public servants whose mission was stewardship – or so it seemed.

As in a fairy tale, public lands have fallen under an evil spell. Now the most popular of them sport high-end facilities with prices set to whatever the market will bear. Now, land managers implement business plans while we, the citizen-owners, have been downgraded to mere “customers.” Nowadays, even simple access frequently requires payment of a fee.

The latest place to fall under the spell is the Payson Ranger District of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. The district is currently soliciting bids on the for-profit management of virtually all recreation there. The successful bidder will control more than 25 facilities located on your public land and constructed using your tax dollars. And the winning bidder won’t even be required to follow the same federal laws as the national forest would have to, if it continued doing its job.

The Forest Service defends recreation fees by claiming that the agency retains the money and uses it to directly benefit the very place you paid to visit. By leasing federally owned recreation facilities to private firms, the agency makes a mockery of that argument. Fees become just another tax, and concessionaires become private tax collectors.

In a prospectus issued in early March, the Payson District began soliciting companies to privatize six family campgrounds, four group sites, a horse campground, an interpretive site, 10 picnic areas and seven trailheads. The prospectus vastly expands the number of fee sites on the district and does so without public involvement or comment. It’s a clear attempt to evade federal legal requirements and prohibitions on where fees can be charged.

What’s more, the winning bidder will not be required to honor federally issued recreation passes. The concessionaire will be allowed to issue and sell a pass of its own creation and keep all revenues. Furthermore, the concessionaire will be allowed to charge fees that the national forest is prohibited from charging, including fees just to park your car and gain access to trails and the backcountry.

A law called the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act was supposed to set strict limits on the recreation fees the Forest Service can and cannot charge. But in a feat of hocus-pocus, the agency says it can simply set these limits aside when it surrenders lands to a concessionaire’s private control.

The Enhancement Act also requires that any proposed new fee sites must undergo a robust and transparent public process, with final review by a citizen advisory committee. Apparently, that’s become too much if a hassle for the agency, because it doesn’t always get the needed public support. Land managers on the Payson have chosen to hand over previously free recreation sites to a concessionaire and declare the process exempt from the law.

The Tonto National Forest is attempting to do all this at the Payson District’s picnic areas, trailheads and a prehistoric Native American village, even though four of the picnic sites were improved in 2010 with taxpayer dollars. We own these sites, and we just paid to fix them up. Isn’t it an outrage that the Forest Service intends to allow a private company to sell us access to our own investment?

The Tonto did not invent this policy, but it is among the worst offenders. There is an America the Beautiful Pass that costs $80 and allows entry into all national parks for a year. It also covers day-use fees at virtually all Forest Service-operated recreation sites. But it won’t get you into the Tonto. For that, you need to upgrade the interagency pass and pay an additional $15. That makes the Tonto the most expensive federal recreational land in the country. And soon, even your pricey new Tonto Pass won’t allow you access to most recreational opportunities on the Payson Ranger District. As for your lifetime Senior or Disabled Pass, both of them will be nearly worthless.

Across the national forest system, creeping privatization has overtaken recreation like the briars that defended Sleeping Beauty’s castle. We need more defenders of free access to our public lands, and you don’t even need to kiss any frogs to speak out; just email Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell at [email protected] and tell him that federal law applies on all federal land. Otherwise, the concept of public lands is nothing but a fairy tale.

Kitty Benzar is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She runs the Western No-Fee Coalition in Durango, Colorado.

3 thoughts on ““Privatization” and Forest Service Recreation Again..”

  1. An old Forest Service buddy used to like to say, “When the going gets tough, the Forest Service gets out.” As per the Concessionaire issue, my buddy might say, “When the going gets tough, the Forest Service contracts it out to ‘for profit’ enterprises.” Setting up public use recreation via concessionaires smacks of privatization of public lands and interests to me.

    I hope the second sentence here isn’t true:

    A law called the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act was supposed to set strict limits on the recreation fees the Forest Service can and cannot charge. But in a feat of hocus-pocus, the agency says it can simply set these limits aside when it surrenders lands to a concessionaire’s private control.(emphasis added)

    I also hope that the last sentence here isn’t true:

    The Enhancement Act also requires that any proposed new fee sites must undergo a robust and transparent public process, with final review by a citizen advisory committee. Apparently, that’s become too much if a hassle for the agency, because it doesn’t always get the needed public support. Land managers on the Payson have chosen to hand over previously free recreation sites to a concessionaire and declare the process exempt from the law.

    But given FS recent tradition of attempting to “categorically exclude” many things — too many things — from NEPA, I suspect that it might be true.

    Too bad! For more gloom and doom, don’t miss RW Behan’s Plundered Promise: Capitalism, Politics, and the Fate of the Public Lands, 2001. Although Behan’s “plunder” ranges much wider than “recreation”, I’m sure that he would now recognize Big-Money Recreation, as I do, as an impending threat.

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  2. And this one is just plain “precious,” from the website Sharon says “points out some of the benefits of concessionaires, especially in this economic environment.”

    As occurred in 1995, when the government shuts down, most of its recreation areas have to close, from the national parks to the Washington Monument to the Smithsonian museums.

    But when most Federal recreation is closed, potentially during a busy spring break week next week, one set of government parks will be open — US Forest Service recreation areas operated by private companies under concession contract. Because private operators collect all the gate fees and pay all the expenses themselves without any government appropriations or labor, these concession campgrounds and day use areas do not have to close when the Treasury runs out of money.

    For sure we ought not risk losing precious moments of “recreation” simply because the US Government has shut down. Gods forbid! Never mind that we are losing so much more during government shutdowns, including the trust of the American people in their elected representatives.

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  3. This is a tricky subject. On the one hand public lands should be open to the public and nobody likes double taxation. On the other hand, heavy use by visitors from the Phoenix metro and other areas results in serious environmental degradation of all sorts (trampling, trash, human and pet waste accumulation, etc).

    I don’t think this is solely a question of money. Consciously or unconsciously, the FS employees involved might like to reduce or disperse visitors (at least at some sites), and the easiest way to do that is to make access more difficult. Fees and concessionaires do make access at least a little bit more difficult, and pay for sanitation and maintenance. So its a tricky issue to deal with.

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