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June 14, 2005
ADVENTURE PASS NO LONGER REQUIRED
FOR MOST OF LOS PADRES FOREST
Forest Service Continues to Charge
Fees for
Visiting the Most Popular Recreation Areas
The Forest
Service announced today that the widely unpopular Adventure Pass
program would be suspended for most areas of the Los Padres
National Forest and other national forests across the
country. However, the agency will still charge fees at all of
the heavily-used areas of the Los Padres National Forest.
The fee
changes were prompted by the Federal Lands Recreation
Enhancement Act, signed quietly into law by President Bush in
the final days of 2004 as part of a budget appropriations
bill. The Act allows the Forest Service to continue collecting
fees in areas with certain amenities.
“We are
thrilled that the Forest Service finally realized how unpopular
it was to charge people to visit their own public lands,” said
Jeff Kuyper, executive director of ForestWatch. “But we remain
concerned that the agency will continue to charge fees to visit
the most popular areas of the forest. Admission fees are for
amusement parks, not our public lands.”
Los Padres
officials announced that 95% of the forest would no longer
require the Adventure Pass. However, visitors must still pay to
access the forest’s most popular areas, including:
- Mount
Pinos (snow season only);
- Goldhill
and Ballinger, Mt. Pinos Ranger District;
- Rose
Valley, Ojai Ranger District;
- Santa
Ynez Recreation Area, Santa Barbara Ranger District;
- Frazier
Mountain Recreation Area;
- Pozo-La
Panza, Santa Lucia Ranger District;
- Nordhoff
Ridge & Potrero Seco OHV Routes; and
- 35
Campgrounds.
Previously,
all visitors needed an Adventure Pass - costing $5 per day or
$30 per year - to access any part of the national forest. Last
year, the Forest Service decided to suspend these fees in the
Monterey Ranger District along the popular Big Sur coast.
The new
Recreation Enhancement Act (REA) allows the Forest Service to
charge fees for areas that have all of the following
specific amenities: toilets, parking, trash receptacles, picnic
tables, visitor information, and security. However, the Forest
Service, under its own guidelines, is now charging fees in
several areas that do not have all of these amenities, in
apparent violation of the law.
The REA also
authorized the Forest Service to continue charging these user
fees for another 10 years, and established criteria to allow the
Forest Service to raise the fees already charged to forest
users, or to begin charging fees in new areas.
The Forest
Service budget has declined significantly over the last few
years. In fiscal year 2005, the agency received $5.56 billion
from Congress, yet even in the midst of current budget
shortfalls, is only asking for $4.88 billion for the upcoming
fiscal year. “The Forest Service should ask for more money from
Congress, not less, so that the agency can fulfill its duties to
protect clean water, provide recreation, and protect habitat
without making the public foot the bill,” said Kuyper.
At the same
time, the Forest Service is evaluating recreation sites across
the country for permanent closure. The agency’s Recreation Site
Master Planning process requires an inventory of all visitor
sites, with a target of closing those sites that the Forest
Service deems “unprofitable.” The Los Padres will begin to
evaluate sites for permanent closure next year.
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