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Portlanders who stagger to their favorite trailhead to walk off their New Year's hangover next week might be in for a new type of headache: They'll need to purchase a sticker to park. The new fees--$3 for the day and $25 for the year--will be in place Jan. 1 at 98 trail heads in Mount Hood National Forest, Gifford Pinchot National Forest and in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. The fees are part of a three-year federal recreation pilot program to raise extra money for national parks, forests and recreation areas. While individual hikers are likely to grumble about paying to use public land, organized protest in Portland seems unlikely. The consensus among most environmentalists and hiking groups is that they have too much else to worry about. Shelling out a few extra bucks generally isn't considered a burden, especially given that most national parks already charge entrance fees and that sportsmen have paid for hunting and fishing licenses for decades. Some free-market thinkers even think the fees will help hikers better defend their interests. That's not to say, however, that the feds can expect a walk in the park. When a pilot program went into effect near Bend this summer, anti-fee stickers with slashes through them turned up on cars near trailheads. And in Congress, Oregon Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio has introduced a bill that would force mining companies to pick up the tab for trail maintenance. No one is saying the feds don't need the money. In the Gorge alone, the Forest Service needs $150,000 to $200,000 annually to maintain 180 miles of trails, according to Forest Service spokesman Mike Ferris. The fee program in the Gorge is expected to net only a portion of that, between $30,000 and $50,000. "Overall, we don't have too much of a problem with user fees as long as it's going to what it's supposed to go for: trail maintenance and new trail construction," says Keith Mischke of Mazamas mountaineering club in Portland. "We have a wait-and-see attitude." When environmentalists or hikers do object, it's usually on the grounds that it makes little sense to tax hikers, who are relatively light on the land and who take no resources such as fish or game, especially when the federal government still provides large subsidies to timber and mining interests. Last month, DeFazio introduced a bill in Congress that proposes a royalty on mining revenues in place of user fees. DeFazio's office figures it would earn $50 million annually--roughly the same that the fee program is expected to generate. "The bill makes the obvious point that Congress is socking it to the people who want to hike up a hill or sit on a beach while it gives away millions of dollars in gold to private companies," says Jeff Stier, an aide to DeFazio. Even Stier, however, admits that the bill was more of a statement than a viable piece of legislation. Scott Silver is also making a statement. As director of a new nonprofit, Wild Wilderness, Silver is the one who printed 1,000 anti-fee stickers. He says he was spurred not by the fees themselves but by who is backing them. According to an early Forest Service brochure describing the pilot project, the fee program is being done in partnership with the American Recreation Coalition. Formed in 1979, the American Recreation Coalition is composed of industry groups such as Kampgrounds of America (KOA), the American Petroleum Institute and the American Motorcyclist Association. One of its goals is to protect vehicle access to public lands. Silver and others are convinced that the pilot program, which ends in 1999, will eventually become a permanent tax. He worries that the new fees are the "thin edge of a wedge" that will eventually "privatize, motorize and corporatize" public lands. Silver reasons that user fees pave the way for corporations who hope to make a buck off public lands by getting people used to the idea of paying for access. While he may seem paranoid, Silver has a point. Corporate interests are definitely taking a closer look at public lands. Last year, Congress batted around a bill that would have allowed companies to become official sponsors of national parks. Land managers also met with tourism leaders last September at a tourism summit where Under Secretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons predicted that recreation revenues would account for $97.8 billion of the $130.7 billion generated by activities on national forests. Silver fears the user-fee program will lead to paid shuttle service to trail heads, corporate-sponsored interpretive centers and eventually theme-park style recreation on public lands. "We don't want to see public land become a place where recreation is prepared for you," says Silver. " |
