Jessica Lee

On Saturday, Dec. 7, at 10 a.m., join the demonstration at the Mt. Lemmon tollbooth. It is time to tell our National Forest Service and Congressional representatives that we reject the National Recreation Fee Demonstration Program.

The Fee Demo program was created by a last minute, un-debated rider to the 1996 Omnibus Rescissions and Appropriations Act. As a law, it allowed the Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management to "implement a fee program to demonstrate the feasibility of user-generated cost recovery for the operation and maintenance of recreation areas or sites and habitat enhancement projects on Federal lands."

Key phrase: user-generated cost recovery.

For decades, many Americans have been unaware of the steady funding decrease for agencies that manage our public lands. In fact, only $0.00018 from every federal tax dollar goes toward the preservation of heritage resources, the preservation of wilderness in those lands, their recreation management and their facilities. That pot of money is then divided among the over 150 national forests nationwide.

Obviously, some of our favorite recreation areas are seriously underfunded, understaffed, undermaintained, underpreserved and undermanaged. The clear answer would be for Congress to increase allocation for these resources in their annual budget appropriations. As politics go, the right and simple thing does not always happen.

This is where corporate America intrudes into the picture.

Recognizing that outdoor recreation could become a packageable good, more than 100 private sector organizations came together to form the American Recreation Coalition in 1979. ARC states that "since its inception, ARC has sought to catalyze public-private partnerships to enhance and protect outdoor recreational opportunities and the resources upon which such experiences are based." In order to privatize our national landscape, ARC had to prove to the Department of Agriculture that indeed Americans would be willing to pay to recreate on federal lands ÷ the same lands that were deemed " · in the public's trust."

ARC's experiment was the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program; if it could be demonstrated that people were willing to pay to do something they used to do for free, it would be evidence that the private sector could move in not only to manage the land, but make a huge profit. David Dittrich, a Seattle-area protest organizer, noted "Free-Demo is undemocratic, exclusionary, discriminatory and, some would say, just plain un-American."

But is it, in a time when corporate America dictates everything from state offices to U.S. foreign policy?

Many would argue that collecting a user fee justifiably shifts the costs of operating a natural resource area, such as Mt. Lemmon, from the taxpayer to the outdoor-enthusiast. Bonnie Colby, UA professor of natural resource economics and public policy, agrees. "The fee makes sense if revenues really stay locally. But saying that is very different from giving the ARC permission to manage public lands."

In fact, many organizations opposed to the Fee Demo have found federal agencies are not living up to their end of the bargaining. Eighty percent of the money generated is supposed to stay within the managed area to be used for facility and road improvements, and ecological and cultural preservation. While John McGee, pro-business head of the Coronado National Forest, likes to keep local financial data quiet, many groups elsewhere have found disappointing results. The Sespe Wild Committee in Ojai, California, found that only 34.5 percent of the total amount raised was being used for on-site improvements.

Since the Fee Demo was set up in Sabino Canyon nearly two years ago, not much "improvement" has taken place with Fee Demo dollars. According to Greg Lewis and Gaye Adams of the Arizona No Fee Coalition, Sabino Canyon has added flushing toilets, ramadas, stretching stations and a new visitors' center, which is basically a store. These "improvements" only spiff up the tram, which is run by a private company. A section of the Butterfly Trail has been closed and announced as "trail improvement."

Combined with President Bush's announcement in March 2002 that the Fee Demo program should be put on the fast track with the current privatization of half of the federal workforce, the program seems frighteningly close to becoming permanent. Yet many members of Congress, such as Republican Sen. Frank Murkowski and Republican Rep. Larry Craig of Idaho, have reversed their opinions and now oppose the project.

As Tucson residents, we must confront the federal agencies and encourage the Pima County Board of Supervisors and state Legislature to pass a resolution against Fee Demo.

Take time to check out http://www.aznofee.org and http://www.wildwilderness.org. Write a letter. And attend this Saturday's demonstration.