Way to go Montana!!!
06-14-2005, 12:04 PM
#1
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington Wa. USA
Posts: 1,386
Way to go Montana!!!
Montana tells Feds to Butt Out
Montana gives it's opinion or the RAT tax. More sates should follow suit.
Montana gives it's opinion or the RAT tax. More sates should follow suit.
06-17-2005, 09:18 AM
#2
Typical Buck
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Anchorage,Alaska
Posts: 512
RE: Way to go Montana!!!
I think the Forest Service is getting the message
Forest Service tweaks fee program in Northern Region
Posted at 2 p.m. June 16
By SUSAN GALLAGHER Associated Press
HELENA - The Forest Service fee program that critics call "pay to play" is dropping charges at about 500 trailheads, picnic areas and other sites nationwide, but only three are in the agency's Northern Region.
People who go to Quake Lake near West Yellowstone no longer must pay to picnic or walk a trail, but a fee to enter the Quake Lake Visitor Center will continue. Fees at two cabins in the Northern Region are ending, as well, but several other cabins are joining the fee list.
Forest Service officials around the country recently studied whether sites with fees met new requirements that the sites have amenities such as permanent toilets, parking and security. The fee program began in 1996, became permanent last year and has been attacked widely as a constraint on the public's use of public places. Legislatures in Montana, Colorado and Oregon want Congress to repeal the fees.
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At Quake Lake, where visitors learn about a 1959 earthquake and landslide that killed 28 people, the Gallatin National Forest had been charging $5 a carload for admission to the visitor center, use of a picnic area and use of a trail leading to a memorial boulder. People who did not wish to enter the center, but did want to picnic or walk the trail, still were expected to pay the $5.
"We felt the facilities involved with going to the memorial boulder or having a picnic didn't justify the fee," Terry Knupp of the Northern Region staff said Thursday. She also said collecting fees only for trail use or picnicking was inefficient.
The only other fees being dropped in the Northern Region - which covers 25 million acres in Montana, northern Idaho and slices of Washington, North Dakota and South Dakota - are for use of a cabin in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest and one in Montana's Custer National Forest.
Knupp said no one rented the Idaho cabin the past few years. The Custer cabin got little use and needs maintenance work. The Forest Service is adding three Montana cabins to its fee list.
Fee critics such as Colorado's Western Slope No-Fee Coalition say charges amount to double taxation because American taxpayers already support federal lands. While fees are understandable at amenity-laden national parks and interpretive centers akin to museums, some critics say, the Forest Service imposed fees at relatively primitive locations and put some recreation seekers at risk of being priced out.
But the agency said a national survey found 80 percent of people believe they get a good value for fees they pay at day-use sites. Amenities the money helps fund include boat ramps, groomed ski trails and parking areas cleared of snow, the Forest Service said.
Knupp said that of the Northern Region's 1,280 sites with structures of one kind or another, 67 percent remain open free of charge. Most of the fee sites are campgrounds, she said.
She also said the Northern Region has relatively few fee sites compared to other places. There are fewer developed sites in the region because the population is relatively small and therefore, the demand for sites is light, Knupp said.
Forest Service tweaks fee program in Northern Region
Posted at 2 p.m. June 16
By SUSAN GALLAGHER Associated Press
HELENA - The Forest Service fee program that critics call "pay to play" is dropping charges at about 500 trailheads, picnic areas and other sites nationwide, but only three are in the agency's Northern Region.
People who go to Quake Lake near West Yellowstone no longer must pay to picnic or walk a trail, but a fee to enter the Quake Lake Visitor Center will continue. Fees at two cabins in the Northern Region are ending, as well, but several other cabins are joining the fee list.
Forest Service officials around the country recently studied whether sites with fees met new requirements that the sites have amenities such as permanent toilets, parking and security. The fee program began in 1996, became permanent last year and has been attacked widely as a constraint on the public's use of public places. Legislatures in Montana, Colorado and Oregon want Congress to repeal the fees.
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At Quake Lake, where visitors learn about a 1959 earthquake and landslide that killed 28 people, the Gallatin National Forest had been charging $5 a carload for admission to the visitor center, use of a picnic area and use of a trail leading to a memorial boulder. People who did not wish to enter the center, but did want to picnic or walk the trail, still were expected to pay the $5.
"We felt the facilities involved with going to the memorial boulder or having a picnic didn't justify the fee," Terry Knupp of the Northern Region staff said Thursday. She also said collecting fees only for trail use or picnicking was inefficient.
The only other fees being dropped in the Northern Region - which covers 25 million acres in Montana, northern Idaho and slices of Washington, North Dakota and South Dakota - are for use of a cabin in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest and one in Montana's Custer National Forest.
Knupp said no one rented the Idaho cabin the past few years. The Custer cabin got little use and needs maintenance work. The Forest Service is adding three Montana cabins to its fee list.
Fee critics such as Colorado's Western Slope No-Fee Coalition say charges amount to double taxation because American taxpayers already support federal lands. While fees are understandable at amenity-laden national parks and interpretive centers akin to museums, some critics say, the Forest Service imposed fees at relatively primitive locations and put some recreation seekers at risk of being priced out.
But the agency said a national survey found 80 percent of people believe they get a good value for fees they pay at day-use sites. Amenities the money helps fund include boat ramps, groomed ski trails and parking areas cleared of snow, the Forest Service said.
Knupp said that of the Northern Region's 1,280 sites with structures of one kind or another, 67 percent remain open free of charge. Most of the fee sites are campgrounds, she said.
She also said the Northern Region has relatively few fee sites compared to other places. There are fewer developed sites in the region because the population is relatively small and therefore, the demand for sites is light, Knupp said.
