Recreation

More Recreation Budget Issues: The Tonto

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Roosevelt Lake
Roosevelt Lake

Area Description: Roosevelt Lake is a year-round recreation destination location in central Arizona on the Tonto National Forest. A two-hour drive northeast of Phoenix, Roosevelt Lake is the largest of the four Salt River lakes and is nestled in the beautiful Sonoron Desert. The lake’s main attractions are water-based activities such as fishing and boating.Other activities around the lake include wildlife viewing, hiking, and exploring. Roosevelt Lake is situated along Highway 188, which can be reached via Highway 60 from Globe via 87 south of Payson. Highway 60 and 87 can be easily accessed from Phoenix. Cholla Recreation Site is five miles northwest of Roosevelt Dam on Highway 188 and Windy Hill Recreation Site is six miles southeast of Roosevelt Dam on Highway 188

Camping Facilities Provided: Both Windy Hill and Cholla have water-operated restrooms, indoor shower facilities, trash removal, boat ramps, fishing-cleaning station, and handicapped accessible boat landing platforms. Each individual campsite has a ramada, picnic table, and grill. An RV dump station is located across the highway from the Cholla Recreation Site.

Area Features: The Roosevelt Marina, Tonto National Monument, Tonto Basin Ranger District Visitor Center, Apache Trail, and Apache Lake Marina are all popular destinations in the wintertime. Watchable wildlife include geese, ducks, eagles, bighorn sheep, mule, deer, javelina, and quail. Gas, food, propane, phones and post offices are located at Punkin Center and Roosevelt just a few minutes from Windy Hill and Cholla Recreation Sites. A full range of services and amenities can be found in Globe or Payson.

Fee/Permits Required: Permits to camp at Windy Hill or Cholla may be purchased at ant Tonto National Forest office, or at a wide variety of venders in Arizona, including Big 5 Sporting Goods stores, Circle K outlets, and local gas stations. The cost is $6 per vehicle per night plus $4 per watercraft per night. Senior and Access cardholders (for people with disabilities) pay 1/2 price. Senior and Access permits may be purchased at Tonto National Forest offices only.
[Image]: Forest Service Shield.

Accessibility: All facilities are handicap accessible.

Here’s a link to a story about a public meeting that the Tonto held.

The meeting in Payson stems from the rising recreation program deficit on the Tonto Forest. That deficit arose mostly from a decline in the amount of money the Forest Service spends on operating campgrounds and other facilities.

For instance, in 2011 the Tonto National Forest invested about $2.8 million in operating its vast network of campgrounds and other facilities and collected about $2.5 million in fees. That produced a roughly $90,000 surplus in the recreation program.

However, in 2013 the budget projects the Forest Service will spend $2.1 million in “allocated” funds and collect another $2.4 million in fees. That will produce a projected $920,000 deficit in the program — a roughly 20 percent shortfall.

The looming financial crisis prompted the Tonto National Forest to launch a series of public meetings to gather suggestions from citizens on what it should do to close the gap.

Participants wandered around a room at Gila Community College examining poster boards with information about the problem and laying out solutions. The alternatives included shutting down campsites and other facilities, raising fees to wipe out the shortfall, turning more facilities over to private contractors and forming more partnerships to help cover the costs of running the array of facilities.

The Tonto National Forest includes a chain of heavily used reservoirs along the Salt River, including Canyon, Apache, Saguaro and Roosevelt lakes. It also includes a dozen campgrounds and day use areas.

The Payson Ranger District actually serves as a test case for the contemplated changes — especially using private contractors to operate campgrounds. A contractor already operates most of the Forest Service campgrounds in Rim Country and charges only slightly higher fees than Forest Service campgrounds elsewhere. Contractors can generally pay lower wages and provide fewer benefits for employees than the Forest Service, resulting in lower operating costs.

The most popular option on the list proved the formation of local partnerships, with higher fees trailing well behind. Almost no one said they wanted to see the Forest Service save money by shutting down developed sites.

About 41 people attended the three-hour open house. Comments posted on the bulletin boards often focused on an alliance between community groups and the Forest Service.

“Use more community volunteer projects to cut costs,” wrote one citizen.

“Tax outdoor gear, ATVs, fishing gear — and use the money to support recreation,” wrote another.

“Make the East Verde a Town of Payson park,” wrote one participant.

“Make Fossil Creek a National Wildlife Refuge and charge for entry,” suggested another.

“Coordinate with non-profit organizations.”

My questions:

If the FS can’t charge for entry, does it make sense to transfer these heavily used areas to another federal, state or local government who can charge? Or would it be simpler to mess with the Forest Service’s policies legislatively?

Is it so wrong for the FS to charge, due to its own regulations, due to law, or for some philosophical reason?

Should the FS be moved to Interior and these areas rezoned to the Park Service so that these kinds of areas be managed separately and fees charged but that the transfers are bureaucratically simpler?

Is outdoor equipment already taxed? By state or feds? What latitude is there to increase/add taxes?

Finally, I am a senior (although perhaps not senior enough for this benefit) but $3.00 per night (1/2 of 6) seems fairly low compared to other similar opportunities. Perhaps FS, BLM, NPS and FWS should harmonize their rates for a given level of service?

Other thoughts or ideas?

Powder Struggle: Snowmobilers, Back-country Skiers Battle in Court

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In my dealings with individual national forests, it seems to me like many of the skier/snowmobiler conflicts are handled locally, which makes a certain amount of sense. And could more forest-wide planning really be the solution (to anything, really, but…)? Because at the end of the day, we will have lots of taxpayer-funded hours generating documents that might come to the same conclusions about the specific areas of conflict.

Reading the paper, it seems like we are in tough budget times. Is this really the highest and best use of taxpayer dollars?

Plus these would have to be funded by scarce recreation funds that could be going to campgrounds, trails, or even managing motorized use on the ground where the conflicts occur (If I’m wrong about this, please enlighten me)?.

What I like about the quotes in this article is that the director of Winter Wildlands Alliance, Mr. Menlove, is direct and honest about using the courts as a tactic to change policy. See the quote “we think that the quiet is a resource that should be managed” below.

Here’s the link and here are some excerpts:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Early-season snow just dusts the peaks above Idaho’s capital, but a courtroom battle down in the valley could have a big impact on who gets to ride where on the accumulating white powder.

A backcountry skier advocacy group, the Idaho-based Winter Wildlands Alliance, will ask a federal judge Wednesday to force the U.S. Forest Service to create plans for snowmobiles limiting their travel on public land — a decision that would apply to national forests all over the country.

National forests since 2005 have been required to craft travel management plans restricting wheeled cross-country travel to designated routes. But snowmobiles were exempted, as the agency allowed individual national forests the freedom to decide if such winter travel plans were necessary.

Some forests created them, including the Clearwater National Forest in north central Idaho. Others, such as neighboring Nez Perce National Forest, begged off.

Absent any consistency, alliance director Mark Menlove speaks of tense outings in places like the Boise National Forest, where hordes of powerful motorized sleds unrestrained by a winter travel plan sometimes roar past panting groups of backcountry skiers, disturbing their icy, human-driven idyll.

“One snowmobile can track up an area in an hour that a dozen skiers could use for two weeks,” said Menlove. “It is a competition for a limited resource. Beyond untracked powder, we also think that quiet is a forest resource that should be managed.”

I also thought this was interesting…

That rule, they argue, was clearly meant to target wheeled vehicles that many natural resource managers said were tearing up public land. Snowmobiles are simply different, the lawyers said.

“An over-snow vehicle … results in different and less severe impacts on natural resource values than wheeled motor vehicles traveling over the ground,” wrote assistant U.S. attorney Julie Thrower, asking Bush to reject Menlove’s group’s claims.

From his Boise office, Menlove counters his group — dubbed an advocate for “human-powered snow sport enthusiasts” — filed its federal lawsuit only as a last resort, after the Forest Service rejected its out-of-court bid to have the snowmobile exemption lifted.

So they seem pretty upfront that they want to add snowmobiles to the travel management rule, and so they are using a legal path. Not so much “the FS is breaking the law” although there must be those kinds of claims in the complaint.

“One snowmobile can track up an area in an hour that a dozen skiers could use for two weeks,” said Alliance Director Mark Menlove. “It is a competition for a limited resource. Beyond untracked powder, we also think that quiet is a forest resource that should be managed.”

Note: back to our previous thread, sounds like these folks in Idaho, who know little about say, the White Mountain, will, through litigation, possibly be setting national policy. Having your comments weighed with others is not necessarily the most impactful way to promote your (non-local) point of view. Yes, public comments were taken nationally on the national travel management rule.

Forest Service Understaffed: Another Solution

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Despite the recession, a mansion in Aspen, Colo., has fetched a boom-market price.
The 21,400-square-foot home sold this week for $43 million and it wasn’t even on the market. Brokers say it’s the most expensive home that has sold in the U.S. so far this year.
The 10-bedroom contemporary mountain home on 4.5 acres sits at the base of Aspen’s exclusive Red Mountain.
I thought this letter to the editor was interesting and posed a creative solution to some of the issues raised on this blog, particularly given our previous discussions about privatization of recreation, concessionaires, and the importance of hiring people in poor rural areas and treating members of the workforce with adequate pay and safety. I can’t figure out quite how the unemployed issue would relate to the Roaring Fork Valley, though; because there are so many well-off people there, the cost of housing is so high that everyone who is not well-off might be considered underemployed. Would that we had an economist on call for this blog!

Here’s the link and below is the letter.

Dear Editor:

The Aspen-Sopris Ranger District’s budget is out for next summer, and they get four summer employees for the entire district. One of those will be trail crew to clear more than 500 miles of trail. This past summer, the district had four on-trail crew members, and they still didn’t quite get all the trails cleared. Be prepared for some tough hiking next summer.

The Roaring Fork Valley makes a lot of money from national forest use. Perhaps those who make the money would be willing to help the district maintain the facilities. A trail-crew person cost the Forest Service $20,000 for the season, including all benefits. The Forest Service cannot solicit donations but can accept donations for a specific purpose.

An organization needs to step forward to act as a clearinghouse for money donated if we want our visitors to have a quality experience next summer.

Ron Thompson

Aspen

More Info on ARC’s Modernization Initiative

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Thanks to Kitty Benzar forARC_Privatization_Plan_2012_FPR_Coverage helpful information from the Parks and Recreation newsletter.
Kitty also pointed to this link in her comments on the previous post.

I noticed this…

Our efforts coincide with a transition in Forest Service recreation program leadership. Jim Bedwell, who has served as National Director of Recreation, Heritage and Volunteer Resources for many years, will relocate in early October to Denver, where he will assume regional recreation program responsibilities. Department officials have told us that they see this transition as an opportunity to strategically realign the Forest Service recreation program.

and this from the ARC site:

The reaction to the presentation by the Under Secretary was enthusiastic and positive. He explained that innovative agreements were happening within other Forest Service programs, but that the progress had been slow in recreation – until the meeting. He praised the thoughts presented and proposed immediate work by a team led by Leslie Weldon and Derrick Crandall aimed at planning a “three-hour-plus meeting within a month to make decisions and proceed.”

Planning for this follow-up session is already underway and a search is on for suitable pilot-effort locations for investments, in-season storage and more.

I hope the public gets a chance to be engaged in the “strategic realignment” as well as these other discussions!

Among the eight planks that industry presented to Under Secretary of Agriculture Harris Sherman and Forest Service officials one received an immediate veto – in-season storage of recreational vehicles on national forest land.

But the other seven elements did receive a better reception, with qualifications:

1. Campground “makeovers” and service expansion
2. Marina “makeovers” and service expansion
3. In-season boat storage on national forests
4. In-season OHV storage on national forests
5. Partnerships with key DMOs on outreach, in-forest services including
apps and more
6. Expansion of use of conservation corps by FS, partners, and
7. National Forest Recreation Centers: consolidation and expansion of
recreation at key recreation “gateways” to national forests.

I have to say I am concerned about the lack of a public forum to talk about this..it seems to me that just given the discussions we have had here, a national Recreation FACA committee would be helpful. With some dedicated research funds to answer the questions they determine they need. Just because there’s no NEPA doesn’t mean there should be no public involvement…

ARC “Modernization of Recreation Sites” Plan? RV Storage?

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Thanks to a reader for this contribution.. Here is the link (to the Camping with Suzi blog), and below are excerpts:

Any help finding the organization and the report she refers to in her blog post would be appreciated. I did find this, which appears to be a powerpoint from June of this year.

Once again, I have to point out that from personal observation, people camping IN FOREST SERVICE CAMPGROUNDS are a subset of people camping ON FOREST SERVICE LAND. This being elk season, I wish someone would fly a sample of forests and estimate people per acre camping and interview those folks and ask them about their experiences. Another topic for the People’s Research Agenda.

A facility-o-centric view of FS camping, or recreation, for that matter, does not tell the whole story. IMHO.

“In season on-site RV storage” is one of the suggested proposals in the American Recreation Association (ARC) “Modernization of Recreation Sites” plan. The concept is that the U.S. Forest Service would give concessionaires operating Forest Service campgrounds the authority to permit, for a fee, the parking of unoccupied recreational vehicles on an active campsite for an extended period of time. According to industry sources, this would allow campers, especially from urban areas, to travel back and forth without having to haul their rigs each time they want to spent time in the forest. This, according to an ARC representative, would be easier on the environment and reduce fuel consumption. The assumption is both would be a good thing. And getting more people enjoying time in the out-of-doors would be good, too.

According to ARC, the number of people enjoying the out-of-doors, specifically in national forests and grasslands, is steadily declining. Although this representative admits obtaining accurate and comprehensive numbers for the number of people who are enjoying national forests and grasslands is nearly impossible, he suggests the decline is more a function of “working mothers” not having the time or energy to perform the logistics necessary for a family to spend time in the out-of-doors. My response is that’s nonsense!

There are many factors likely influencing the possible decline of people using national forest campgrounds. Deteriorating infrastructure in campgrounds and the ever increasing influence of concessionaires could be reasons. An infrastructure where the vaults are not maintained or there is an absence of drinking water would discourage many potential campers. Fees for having pets in a campground, restrictions on collecting dead and down wood so campers must purchase firewood from the concessionaire, and closing of campgrounds as soon as schools are back in session, voiding the possibility of camping in the less crowded “shoulder” season, are likely to contribute to the reduction in people camping at concessionaire-operated campgrounds. Perhaps ARC and others in the outdoor recreation industry should look at other factors contributing to the alleged decline in national forest and grassland campground occupancy before pointing their finger at the “working mother” or suggesting “in season on-site RV storage” would miraculously improve campground occupancy.

Courthouse News Service on Burnt Mountain- QA/QC Needed!

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We have talked about the Courthouse News Service before here on this blog. It is a handy place for keeping up with litigation news, but like so many outlets, you can’t believe everything you read. At least they are upfront about their bias.

Here’s a link:

Developers trying to expand a ski resort in the mountain wilderness of Colorado can move forward with their forest-clearing plans, a federal judge ruled.

Hmm. . “forest-clearing” 800 trees? I guess that’s a bit of hype.. well OK.
Of more concern is this statement:

But U.S. District Judge James Boarsberg dismissed the complaint Friday, citing a Colorado law that allows ski resorts to skirt forestry regulations.

Really, a “law” ? The rule actually is a regulation.

In a “roadless” area, “trees may not be cut, sold, or removed” without special permission from the Forest Service, according to the 20-page decision.

I think in non-roadless areas that’s also the case. Oh well.

Central to both parties’ arguments were their respective interpretations of the term “roadless,” a distinction bestowed by the Forest Service upon pristine tracts of land “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.”

That sounds like wilderness, also it seems like backcountry skiers are already “trammeling” this specific area.

While the federal Roadless Area Conservation Rule establishes criteria through which land can be designated as “roadless,” the court notes that the more-specialized Colorado Roadless Areas Rule supersedes the initial regulation and introduces a key statute.
The most recent legislation precludes “existing permitted or allocated ski areas” from receiving “roadless” designations, according to the court.

Honestly, I couldn’t read the rest of it..I wish they’d had a link to the judge’s decision because I had no clue from this article. Seems to me like legislation and rulemaking are different things. QA/QC, where are you? I know roadlessness is complicated- otherwise it wouldn’t have kept as many roadless geeks like myself gainfully employed, but still…

If you’re interested in better coverage, try this article from the Summit Daily News. Below is an excerpt. Chalk one up for local vs. national news sources.

But Boasberg ruled that the 2011 Colorado Roadless Rule eliminates roadless areas from within ski-area boundaries. The Ark Initiative needed to raise its concerns about roadless lands within ski-area boundaries when Colorado’s roadless rule was being debated, the judge said.

“The Colorado Roadless Rule was not off-the-cuff rulemaking,” Boasberg wrote in his order. “As the Forest Service explained in its letter (to the Ark Initiative), the rule ‘is the result of extensive public involvement. More than 310,000 public comments, over a six-year period, were reviewed and considered in the development of the final rule.’”

The Ark Initiative “chose not to comment on the rule and thus cannot challenge it now. If plaintiffs wanted roadless designations in ski areas, they should have participated in the rulemaking,” the order continued.

White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams said he hopes this latest ruling puts an end to the debate over Burnt Mountain. The Forest Service approved a Snowmass Ski Area Master Development Plan in 1994 that paved the way for expansion onto Burnt Mountain. Skico amended the plan in 2003 and applied a year later for specific approvals for the Burnt Mountain work. After three years of review, the Forest Service approved the plan. The Ark Initiative filed an administrative protest, which was denied. The Ark Initiative then filed a lawsuit in federal court that was denied and upheld by an appeals court.

“We’ve been dealing with this long enough,” Fitzwilliams said. “They’ve dragged us into court three times now.”

William Eubanks, an attorney for the Ark Initiative, couldn’t be reached for comment Monday on what, if anything, will be the next step for the environmental group.

The Forest Service is formally notifying Skico that it can move forward with the project, Fitzwilliams said.

“A good portion of the work is done,” he said.

He estimated 60 to 70 percent of the tree thinning and clean-up is finished.

In an earlier interview, Rich Burkley, Skico vice president of operations, estimated the trails crew will remove fewer than 800 living and dead trees from about 6.5 acres within the 230-acre area of Burnt Mountain. The terrain is east of Longshot, the existing inbounds trail on Burnt Mountain. The rest of Burnt Mountain is popular backcountry or sidecountry terrain.

Skico is glading areas between natural parks or breaks in the forest. There won’t be designated trails, Burkley said previously, but rather thin routes through the trees.

The expansion will boost the skiable terrain at Snowmass to 3,362 acres. That makes it the second-largest ski area in Colorado behind Vail Mountain.

The Ark Initiative’s lawsuit was filed in the District of Columbia on Sept. 11. When it was filed, the Forest Service asked Skico to voluntarily halt work while the legal fight was being settled. Skico intervened in the lawsuit on the side of the Forest Service.

The judge’s 20-page ruling said even if the Ark Initiative was correct and lands on Burnt Mountain were removed by the Forest Service by mistake from the roadless inventory, the mistake was made moot when the Colorado Roadless Rule was created.

“In other words, it does not matter whether the Burnt Mountain parcel has the characteristics of a roadless area; the parcel is inside Snowmass Ski Area, so the Colorado Roadless Rule precludes designating it roadless,” the ruling said. “Effectively, the Forest Service is saying that any error in earlier inventories is harmless because the Burnt Mountain parcel cannot qualify as roadless now anyway.”

But the point that seems to be missed here (I think Sloan Shoemaker pointed it out in a previous article) is that it would be OK- even under the 2001 Rule, to do this work in a roadless area, as the action is “incidental to activities not otherwise prohibited.”

Guest Post by Kitty Benzar on National Forest Concessionaires and Privatization

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Whitney Portal Campground, California, managed by Recreation Resource Management.

Thank you to Kitty Benzar for this guest post.

Here are three examples of concessionaire operating plans. All of these are included in the lawsuit filed on Sept 11. They include day use fee sites that have never been vetted through any public process, as well as types of fees that FLREA prohibits the Forest Service from charging, such as for simply passing through a developed area without using the facilities.

I get more calls and emails from people about concessionaire issues than any other topic. There is a lot of pent-up anger out there about concessionaires being allowed to operate under different rules than the federal agencies have to follow. People have been told by concessionaire employees that they are trespassing – on National Forest land! – just for walking through a developed area to get to a trailhead or the bank of a river or lake. There are frequent stories of concessionaire employees being rude, aggressive, and drunk on the job. Concessionaire sites are frequently reported to be trashy and run down. I’m sure there are concessions that are better run than others, but this is what I’m hearing. If the FS was simply hiring private contractors to haul the trash or maintain the toilets I don’t think there would be a problem with that. But instead they are leasing facilities to private operators and then walking away.

Since the news stories about the concessionaire lawsuit started appearing I have been buried in “attagirl” emails and phone calls. The overall message has been “It’s about time somebody did something about this!”

The FS relationship with the concessionaire industry is way too cozy. There have been at least two closed-door meetings this summer between Undersecretary Sherman and the American Recreation Coalition about the ARC’s proposal for drastic expansion of the concessionaire system. Deputy Chief Weldon is going to give a keynote speech in November at a conference promoting the privatization of public lands. To me, it all has a strong aroma of conflict of interest. The new buzzword in the concessionaire world is “PPP” for Public-Private Partnership. They are using it to distance themselves from the charge of “privatization” which they have learned creates knee-jerk opposition among the public. But PPP is just code for Privatization; they are one and the same. Check out the below comparison over time of the banner on the webpage for www.ParkPrivatization.com.

Note from Sharon: I have attached three operating plans and a better version of the webpages here; below is the best I know how to do in WordPress as an image.
Santa Catalina Complex RoseCyn2012OPplanSigned.

Ochoco FOIA_Ochoco_2012_operating_plan_and_GT_agreement.

Pike and San Isabel2012 – Operating _Plan_Redacted.

And a higher resolution of the screenshots below, ParkPrivatization_webpage_banner_evolution

Shoshone Forest Recreationists Finding Common Ground

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If local recreationists can get along to support a recreation agenda, then why not national recreation interests? What’s up with that?

See this article about the Shoshone plan and recreationists…
Here’s the article and below is an excerpt..

Wind River Front officials say the group represents a broad range of interests. Some, like Wild Iris, are directly affected by recreation on the forest. Others, like Hudson’s carpentry business, thrive in the area because people choose to live in Lander for the nearby recreational opportunities on the forest.

There’s no specific agenda the group is pushing due to the varying interests among recreationists, according to Hudson. For instance, some want less motorized use, while those who ride ATVs are looking for more trails. Some backcountry skiers want a section of Togwotee Pass closed to snowmobiling, whereas snowmobilers oppose such a ban. All of these interests are represented by Wind River Front.
Wyoming map of federal jurisdiction

A map detailing the jurisdiction of federal agencies in Wyoming. Conflicted interests are common among Wind River Front’s varied membership, so the group has chosen not to advocate one recreational agenda over another. (Wikimedia — click to enlarge)

Issues that are divisive among the group will be left out of the group’s official comments to the Forest Service, and individuals are encouraged to submit their own comments on the issues. As a result, while the group’s comments won’t oppose additional motorized use — including proposed connectors to create loops for ATVs — they will ask for better enforcement to keep motorized use on legal trails, Hudson said.

As a group, Wind River Front will submit some comments representing everyone in the network, but it will be more general, Hudson said. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that they want only a small area set aside for surface occupancy and oil and gas development.

21st Century Problems.. Recreation Bucks and Different Solutions-The San Gabriels Otra Vez

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Azusa, CA – Sunday, September 23, 2012: As children play, piles of trash including styrofoam plates, food containers, diapers and plastic grocery bags accumulate across the ground, trashing the East Fork of the San Gabriel Valley River in the Angeles National Forest on Sunday, September 23, 2012 in Azusa, Calif. (Patrick T. Fallon/ For the Los Angeles Times)

I thought it was interesting that on the previous post on the role of concessionaires (here), many of our usual readers did not weigh in. I don’t know what that means.. certainly we will have recreation funding problems, whether or not we do fuel treatments on the national forests and how that debate finally turns out. Maybe we are missing the forest for the trees..;). What do most taxpayers get from the national forests? Water, some wood, some energy, but mostly recreation.

It seems like there are currently two responses to “not enough money”… 1) give it to the Park Service (which gets funding from exactly the same place) or 2) use concessionaires. I would propose another, “design a funding process for the Forest Service that everyone (at least on this blog) can support, and then lobby the heck out of Congress”. For example, what if retirees, the conservation community and AFSEEE all joined together for heavy duty grassroots lobbying?

I would be interested in what you think of my idea, plus what are your ideas?

What triggered this was another article about trashed public land, with the answer (again) being getting the bucks from another pocket of Uncle Sam.

Here’s the link to the LA Times article, and below is an excerpt. The subtitle of the article is:
“Cutbacks leave rangers outnumbered in dealing with car burglaries, drug deals, gold prospectors and rowdy parties along the mountain creek.”

Beautiful and clean may have been an apt description in the past. But it doesn’t fit today. Although water quality monitors say the East Fork is safe to swim in, the vicinity of the swimming hole was fouled by dozens of dirty diapers and, on some rocks midstream, human feces.

“I’ve lost count of the times I’ve pleaded with the Forest Service to get the trash out of the river,” said Mark Yeltsin, manager of the Camp Williams Cafe, the only commercial establishment on the East Fork. “They have a stock answer: ‘Sorry. We don’t have the resources.'”

Tom Contreras, supervisor of the 640,000-acre Angeles National Forest, said a few more rangers and cleanup crews would certainly enhance his ability to enforce laws on the river, but budget restraints have made that all but impossible. “We have one full-time technician assigned to that area — I wish we had more,” Contreras said.

Environmental and community groups say conditions have reached critical mass, not only on the river but across the San Gabriel Mountains. Something needs to change.

“We desperately need a new vision and management plan for the East Fork and the entire range,” said Juanna Torres, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club. “What we’ve got up there now isn’t working.”

San Gabriel Mountains Forever, a coalition of community and environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Friends of the River, is backing a plan that seeks to balance the crush of tourists with conservation. Essentially, it would transform the San Gabriels into a national recreational area co-managed by the National Park Service. The designation would make it eligible for additional federal resources, including law enforcement officers, interpretive signs and trash collection.

The National Park Service is completing a study of the proposal for submission to Congress and possible authorization next year.

What, there is need for law enforcement, but it needs to be “designated” before the funds will be available? I think something smells funny, but it isn’t the piles on the rocks, it’s something about the current budget process.

Lawsuit, Day Use Fees and Campgrounds

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National Park Service Long’s Peak Trailhead, just up the road from concessionaire managed Brainerd Lakes.

I looked for Forest Service “presence” at Brainerd that day (several years ago) and this is all I found, in not the most scenic spot..

At least Hooty made it to this site.

Oh, but this is why people actually go there.. some might argue that a site this beautiful should be acquired by the Park Service, who would end up charging..it’s all very complex. So this is a fairly unique post in that I don’t know as much about this topic as I do others.. so hoping others from the recreation world can help. If you are in the Forest Service and you know something that you think would help the discussion, please do, you can make up an alias in yahoo or google if you don’t want to use your name.

Off one of the trails from Brainerd Lakes.

Several years ago, I was intending to write a post for this blog, called “A Tale of Two Trailheads” comparing the management of Brainerd Lakes (concessionaire) and Long’s Peak (Park Service); never did, but here are the photos and the below article reminded me of it. Let’s just reflect on the two trailheads while we read the article.

The Denver Post had this article in the business section today, but I found it fairly confusing. Maybe some readers can help.

The first sentence is:

“A U.S. Forest Service push to privatize management of campgrounds is prompting a backlash from critics who oppose concessionaires charging day-use fees to access federal lands.”

Because before I retired we had the Mt. Evans case, which was about what I’ll call the “what for” question (WhatFor) “what services can you charge for?”, I thought that that was a separate question from “should concessionaires be allowed to run campgrounds?”, the concessionaire campgrounds (or ConCamp) question.

Why do we have to pay to go into public lands? The land belongs to the people, and the people should be able to use the land for free,” said 64-year-old Wimert, who began decrying day-access fees when he was charged entrance to pedal into Brainard Lake Recreation Area two years ago.

Somehow the Forest Service has lost its way. They are no longer caring for the land and serving the people. They are serving themselves,” he said.

Let’s compare Brainerd to Longs. Do we say if the Park Service charges to access Long’s, they have “lost their way” and are “serving themselves?”. No we’d probably say we are paying for the quality facilities they have there.

I don’t think the Forest Service is “serving themselves”. They didn’t have enough money to run these places, so partnerships seemed like 1) a way to provide public service 2) within the budget. Like everything, this had the unintended consequence of empowering a small vocal group to become active politically to get more goodies.

Now. one of my previous bosses would say something like “campgrounds are a chance for us to touch the public, to be there in uniform, to help members of the public be outdoors. Nothing can be more important than us to be there for them. The Park Service “gets it”, we need to “get it” also.” Even though he had a lot of passion and desire, and about as much power as someone is likely to get in the Forest Service, in my opinion, he couldn’t do anything because the bucks aren’t there (and now there is an entrenched political group supporting it). If you, as I do, think that this is important, I wish we could all work together to do something.. agitate for a separate budget line item for campgrounds, or ???

“The Forest Service is allowed under current federal law to keep all the money they bring in from a campground, so there are no efficiencies gained by contracting a private company,” she said.
In Colorado, seven national forests covering 14.5 million acres include 1,268 non-fee sites and 540 fee areas with 469 recreation sites operated by concessionaires. Nationally, half of all Forest Service camping sites — 82 percent of the reservable camping sites available under the National Recreation Reservation Service — are managed by concessionaires. Thirty years ago, the Forest Service primarily operated its own lands.
Concessionaire operations are a big money business. According to the Forest Service, a small campground concession with one to three developed sites can produce revenue ranging from $50,000 to $105,000. A larger campground with 10 to 12 sites can generate more than $1 million in annual revenue.
Total campground concessionaire revenue nationally is estimated at $35 million.

My understanding is something along the lines of “there is no money to hire someone to empty the toilets and do maintenance, and campground fees alone can’t pay for those people.”

Therefore, concessionaires seem like a good idea because it’s that or shutting them down. And of course concessionaires only want the best ones, so that leaves the Forest Service with the less popular ones that have fewer visitors. And of course, the FS has lots of rules and regulations and hiring and pay requirements, which maybe the concessionaires don’t have to follow, which I assume (???) is how they can make a profit.
The funds going back to the Forest don’t help if it’s a net loss.

The increasing use of private concessionaires is riling some users just as a national program aimed at boosting private investment in federal recreation sites gains momentum. The Washington D.C.-based American Recreation Coalition soon will unveil a dozen pilot programs — at least one of which is in Colorado — that would forge public-private partnerships allowing for-profit concessionaires to invest in upgrades like on-site storage of boats at marinas and improved facilities at campgrounds.

I think all of us really need to look at this cautiously, but this is about ConCamp, it seems like, not what the lawsuit was about which is about WhatFor. It seems to me that NEPA provides for good discussion of projects, but not so much programs like this. I wonder what sort of public involvement has been done with broader topics like the role of concessionaires?

The lawsuit argues that the Forest Service’s permitted concessionaires charge fees “even when visitors do not use any facilities or services of the area, but simply wish to enter Forest Service lands to engage in undeveloped recreation.” The lawsuit also contends that issuing special permits without public involvement to concessionaires who charge fees does not meet the federal requirement for public notice of pricing changes.

In 2009, the Forest Service proposed cutting the camping fee discount for interagency passes like the Golden Age and Senior passes from 50 percent to 10 percent, citing concessionaire concerns over lost revenue. In 2010, the agency scuttled the reduced discount proposal. Still, concessionaires don’t have to accept the passes.

The first paragraph seems to me like it’s about the WhatFor question but whether concessionaires need to follow the same rules the FS does? The second paragraph seems to be about ConCamp- I don’t see why concessionaires wouldn’t have to follow the rules. After all, following the rules is one part of why it’s expensive for the FS to run them in the first place.

Finally, Derrick Crandall is quoted as saying:

“We are trying to broaden the use of public lands,” said coalition president Derrick Crandall, pointing to stagnant visitation to Forest Service campgrounds when compared to private campgrounds. “We are looking at ways to bring these worn-out, outmoded facilities up to levels we expect at ski areas. We really see this initiative as a win-win for everyone.

Now the other thing I’ve noticed about say, parts of the Med-bow and the Bighorn, is that few people are camped at the campgrounds, but many, many people are dispersed camping throughout the forest. First, you have to pay money, second you have to follow rules, third you are right next door to your neighbors, fourth you can’t make up configurations of RV’s, horse trailers and tents that fit your friends and family. I have been on different parts of both of these forests at times when all the likely dispersed camping spots have been filled and the campground is relatively empty. It seems that in spots (at least where I’ve seen a lot of dispersed camping), people don’t want FS campgrounds not because they’re not nice enough (State Parks, Park Service and KOA) but because they are too “nice.”

If the FS charged $10 a head for dispersed camping per season during deer and elk season (livestock and people) there might be enough that we wouldn’t need concessionaires. I wonder if we need a recreation policy FACA committee in DC?

Anyway, this is all very confusing to me, and I know we’ve had good discussion about this on this blog in the past, hoping we can do so again.