Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, Our backyards make up the majority of the nation’s public lands, and yet we Westerners don’t know how to talk about the future of those lands. That was clearly shown by two essays on recreation user fees in the Oct. 13, 1997, High Country News. Terry Anderson and Steve Hinchman both assumed that […]

Dear HCN, As a frequent user of trout streams on public lands, I have been amazed at the reluctance of some of my fellow fishermen to pay user fees. People who use $400 fly rods with $200 reels holding $45 lines, whose $150 vests and $100 boots and $200 waders ride in $20,000 cars, will […]

Dear HCN, As an original member of the Quincy Library Group, I was pleased to read an honest treatment of the QLG (HCN, 9/29/97). However, speaking as a forester and environmentalist who has been actively involved in Northern Sierra land management issues since 1975, I take issue with the letters in the Nov. 10 issue. […]

Dear HCN, I can remember when Tortolita near Tucson was undeveloped land, raw and ruggedly beautiful. Now it’s a suburb. So I was surprised and a little disappointed by the one-sided way that Tony Davis reported on the incorporation of the town of Tortolita (HCN, 9/29/97). I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when […]

Dear HCN, Ed Marston’s remarks about Wayne Aspinall and his allies demonstrates that Marston lived in another world during Mr. Aspinall’s tenure as chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee (HCN, 11/10/97). Theocracy, indeed! Mr. Aspinall may have been Mr. Chairman, but his accomplishments came about because of his ability to forge political compromise […]

Dear HCN, Draining Utah’s Lake Powell isn’t such a silly notion (HCN, 11/10/97). The river is filling the reservoir with sediment, and in the not-too-dim future much of the reservoir will become little more than a muddy plain. Once the reservoir contains more mud than water, the dam’s contribution to power production also will dwindle. […]

Dear HCN, In the article, “Wet summer a bust for firefighters,” Thomas Power, an economist with the University of Montana, said, “These are some of the best-paying jobs for unskilled labor in Montana” (HCN, 9/15/97). Calling forest firefighting an unskilled job is condescending as well as untrue. Anyone who has worked on a hot-shot crew […]

Dear HCN, The Wyoming stories by Paul Krza, Jeffery Smith and Hugh Jackson were insightful (HCN, 7/7/97). Having lived just north of the Wyoming border, in Billings, Mont., for many years, I used to watch those license plates from Wyoming pull into shopping malls and stores, load up the trunk and head home without paying […]

Dear HCN, Thanks for the Sept. 29 article on the “green” subdivision in Springdale, Utah, but it’s too bad the article did little more than lament a done deal. I propose you inaugurate a column of insensitive subdivisions and list names and phone numbers of unscrupulous developers, and local planning/elected officials who can alter or […]

Dear HCN, Writer Marc Reisner, in “Deconstructing the age of dams’ (HCN, 10/27/97), notes that rice straw needs a market outlet. Perhaps straw bale construction is not popular in California, but it is catching on in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. It is inexpensive, kind to the environment, and a substitute for adobe construction, which […]

Dear HCN, To add a user-fee note from California: On Mount Shasta, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is charging climbers $15 each to go above 10,000 feet, plus $5 per day to park at backcountry trailheads. The information officer at the ranger station told me that the fees were being put in place to avoid placing […]

Dear HCN, The current “recreation funding crisis’ has less to do with trail fees than with management direction. Congress and top federal agency managers are rapidly shifting their focus from one commercial forest “product” to another: from timber production to industrial recreation. The “Demonstration Recreation Fee Program” is but a small part of a larger […]

Dear HCN, I’m afraid we are missing the boat when it comes to the issue of user fees on our parks and public lands. Many who support the idea would have us believe it’s primarily an economic issue. While that is true in part, it is also an issue which raises profound moral questions. Our […]

Dear HCN, I’d like to comment on your article about user fees for mountain bikers, campers and hikers in the Sand Flats/Slickrock Trail area of Moab. It has been a few years since I’ve been there, but what I clearly remember is the grazing damage was far worse and much more pervasive than any recreational […]

Dear HCN, I’m writing to compliment High Country News on its coverage of the Quincy Library Group (QLG) and bill (HCN, 9/29/97). It was as calm, complete, unbiased, and delightfully wry an overview of the situation as I have seen to date. My response is enhanced by my being a rural county supervisor in the […]

Dear HCN, In your story on the Quincy Library Group (HCN, 9/29/97), I read the comments of Kent Connaughton, shaking my head in agreement, until I got to his statement, “When you work through the Congress, you get the validation of the American people. It says that these are a valid set of priorities that […]

Dear HCN, As I am accustomed to seeing my name on bathroom walls and bulletin boards in certain public buildings, the implication (from developer Milo McCowan) that I support the dozing of Utah’s Rockville Bench merely adds another zit to an already blemished reputation (HCN, 9/29/97). It is not OK, however, to drop the name […]

Dear HCN, In your article, “The land is still public, but it’s no longer FREE,” you quote Randal O’Toole, a forest economist, as saying, “… the government has been managing land for ranchers and loggers, and collecting fees from them (HCN, 10/13/97). The result … is that the agencies have leaned toward the interests of […]

Dear HCN, Your story about setting user fees on public lands presented the irony of duplicitous standards. For years the environmental movement has been harping at industries to pay for their use of the land; now, when recreationists are asked to pay for their own abuse of the land (any use is abuse, by definition), […]

Dear HCN, I’ve just finished reading the articles about usage fees for hiking, camping, climbing, etc., and I must admit, it’s one of those peculiar times when I feel strongly both ways. My initial emotion is resentment. I despise unnecessary regulation – signs, signs, everywhere a sign, or a fee or a form. But I […]