NW Forest Pass

The NW Forest Pass is up for renewal this year. If you hate to pay to visit public lands, then now is an excellent time to write your legislators. I took the opportunity to also protest OHV sticker, National Park Passes, Snow-Passes, etc.

Is this in referance to the $10 ATV permit required to wheel TSF? If not, where can I find more information? If so, is there any documentation stating what this $10 is actually for. The way I look at it, is that $10 every 2 years is not very much money to help keep our lands open and kept up. If this helps pay for rangers and park maintenance, I don't mind. Many places are charging $5 per visit, to me $10 every 2yrs is not bad at all. To remove the $10 every 2 years would mean funding needs to come from another source, and if it were up to a public vote, I'd say 85-90% of Oregon's population does not even use public land, so it would be hard for them to justify the expense.

JMHO,
Steve

No, this isn't for the OHV permits. The NW Forest Pass is the parking fee charged at hiking trailheads. The fees are supposed to pay for trail maintence, toilets, and more rangers to harass you. NW Forest permits cost $30 per year. No new trails or trailhead parking has or will be built with this money. Unless you really feel that we need more toilets at trailheads, you probably will not gain much from these passes being continued. More likely, you'll just see more and higher fees in the future if this program continues. How many permits do you have now? OHV permit, NW Forest Pass, NP Pass, hunting, fishing, etc.... State Parks use to be free. Now $2 to $5 dollars is the norm, $10 or $15 for a night of camping, $10 to $15 to visit a NP, it just doesn't end. Most of these fees are fairly recent. Where did the funding come from before all these fees were implemented? What's that money used for now? Why do we need more rangers? Frankly I've always taken offense at some kid stopping me on a trail and demanding my permit to visit PUBLIC LAND. Last summer I was stopped by two kids dressed up as rangers, neither of which was a day over 18 and probably hadn't paid a dime in taxes in their lives. They just wanted to check that all the fees had been paid, they have thier retirement plans to think about I guess. And what sort of maintence do you think these fees pay for? I've see a lot of volenteer work on 4X trails, but all I've ever seen a gov't worker do is close trails. It all goes back to the old feeding bears story: If you feed them they just want more and more, and they'll rip you to shreads if you don't or even if you do continue feeding them. I'm not asking for any services on public land, just to continue using existing trails and roads.

I've received some feed back from my Congressmen on this. In fact I received my first ever response (out of over a dozen e-mails and stamped letters that I've sent him) from Sen. Gordon Smith (Borrow and Spend Rep., OR) and another response from Rep. David Wu (Tax and Spend Dem., OR). Both seemed to feel that the FS already collects plenty in taxes and fees to support trailhead services, and that the NW Forest Pass (Recreation Fee Demonstration Program) was really an unfair "additional" fee. Rep Wu also told me that Rep DeFazio (T&S Dem., OR) "had offered an amendment to the 2004 Interior Appropriations bill which would have required this program to go through the proper authorization process of the Committee on Resources". In other words, the FS would have to go before Congress and sell this program to Congress. This amendment failed, but the feeling I got from his comments was that there is widespread bi-partisan opposition to this program. My fear now is that this program might sneak pass any debate, and just get authorized in one of those "Omnibus Appropriations Bills". So far in OR we have one Senator and two Reps who oppose this program. Where do your Congress-persons stand on this program? Write or call them today! :compwork: :callme: aperwork:

Good to hear you got some feedback on this. Makes it seem like some people are actually reading these letters which is a good thing. :thumbup:

Jes