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Editorials -- Forests for Fat Cats?

Idaho Mountain Express -- For the week of June 27 - July 3, 2001

Forests for Fat Cats? Backcountry for billionaires? Mountains for moguls?

Call it what you will, but the move by the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona to charge "market fees" for camps leased to organizations like the Boy Scouts of America is a holdup.

The Forest Service needs no mask or gun to steal candy from babies. All it has to do is mail the bill.

However, the blame for the move may be misplaced. The Forest Service says it is simply complying with a federal law that requires it to collect fair-market value for its lands.

The congressmen and senators who approved that law should step up and take the credit-or damnation-for it.

Sure, the Forest Service has leased its lands to private individuals for giveaway rates for too many years. Worse, its low-buck rates enriched individuals with mountaintop or lakeside cabins at the expense of the public.

Camps for kids are different.

In Arizona, the lease fee for the Mount Lemmon Boy Scout Camp near Tucson would rise from $4,500 to $71,000. That's a lot more money than a few more Saturday car washes will generate.

To be fair, the Forest Service says that groups that cater to children or the poor can apply for reductions.

Yet, faced with the federal law and the tempting fair-market values, what will the Forest Service choose? Fat cats with fat wallets or a bunch of bologna-eating kids?

We think we know. Faced with a similar dilemma little more than a decade ago, the state of Idaho chose to sell off camp land on Payette Lake near McCall to a private developer.

Lawmakers and the U.S. Forest Service should re-think this greed grab before the nation's public lands become defacto gated communities with entrance granted only to the wealthy.