A3
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2019
On public lands, visitors surge while funds decline
By KIRK SIEGLER
National Public Radio
It’s the boom times in
Mammoth Lakes, California,
which is wrapping up a win-
ter of record snowfall.
Eager to take advantage
of it, Donovan Sliman and
his two young daughters are
lumbering up a snowy trail
on the outskirts of town,
where the condos give way
to national forest.
“I like to get away from
everybody else,” says Sli-
man. “I like to hear the
sound of the wind and the
snow through the trees.”
“We’re also going to go
sledding,” adds Grace, one
of his daughters.
Mammoth is completely
surrounded by protected fed-
eral wilderness or U.S. For-
est Service land. Its desti-
nation ski resort operates
on public land via a federal
lease.
The Slimans try to visit
the Mammoth Lakes area
from their home in Orange
County at least a half dozen
times a year.
They’re not alone.
Every year, more than 2
million people descend on
California’s eastern Sierra
region to camp, hike, fi sh,
hunt and ski. This region,
often dubbed “the wild side”
of the state, only has about
50,000 residents across two
sprawling counties roughly
the size of Massachusetts.
Visits up, funding down
Across the western U.S.,
towns surrounded by public
lands are facing an increas-
ing bind: They’re seeing a
huge surge in visitors com-
ing to play in the forests
and mountains surrounding
them, which is leading to an
economic boom. But, at the
same time, federal funding
to manage these lands has
been drying up.
“There are these dramatic
increases in recreational
uses of public lands, and
at the same time dramatic
declines in recreational bud-
Kirk Siegler/National Public Radio
Like most American ski areas, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area operates on U.S. Forest Service land thanks to a federal lease.
gets,” says Megan Lawson,
a researcher at the Mon-
tana-based think tank Head-
waters Economics.
A recent analysis by the
group showed that visita-
tion to U.S. Forest Service
and Bureau of Land Man-
agement land has risen by
about 15 percent over the last
decade, while budgets for
programs that support rec-
reation in those agencies has
fallen by a similar amount.
According to Headwa-
ters, since 2010, the Bureau
of Land Management’s rec-
reation budget has fallen by
18 percent, or $14 million.
The Forest Service’s recre-
ation budget has fallen by 16
percent or $49 million in the
same time period.
Lately, more of that
money has been shifted to
pay for wildfi res in the West.
Since 2000, for instance,
the Forest Service budget
for wildfi res and suppres-
sion has increased by more
than 100 percent. And, more
recently, the Trump admin-
istration has tried to devote
more resources to fast-track
logging and mining on pub-
lic lands.
It’s been a slow-mov-
ing crisis, but lately has
prompted local leaders like
John Wentworth to warn of a
future where public lands are
loved to death.
“Trailheads are trashed,
bathrooms don’t work, trails
aren’t maintained, people are
parking all over the place,”
he says.
For Wentworth, the tim-
ing couldn’t be worse.
Towns like his have gone all
in to promote their recreation
economies and the ameni-
ties they offer based on their
access to federal public land.
So they’re now forced to
get creative to deal with the
problem of shrinking reve-
nues to take care of that land.
A smaller federal
presence
A former mayor and cur-
rent town council member,
Wentworth loves to show off
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the wild lands surrounding
Mammoth Lakes. There are
the backcountry ski glades
south of town, accessible by
a short drive from his home.
The hiking in the summer
accessing the famed John
Muir Trail and the Ansel
Adams Wilderness is unpar-
alleled. All these public
lands are why people fl ock
here and in some cases move
here permanently, he says.
On a recent snowy after-
noon, he stopped his pickup
at a popular U.S. Forest Ser-
vice trailhead just south
of town. Things had got-
ten pretty lawless there
during peak periods, he says,
because the federal agencies
just didn’t have the resources
to keep tabs on the trail-
head. This was especially
apparent during prolonged
government shutdowns in
recent years. So the town
stepped in, convincing vot-
ers to approve a tax increase
to help pay for maintenance
and staffi ng at gateways to
federal public lands.
At the Mill City Trail-
head, Wentworth shows off
the new, big informational
signs laying out the rules.
There’s even a doggy bag
bin. All of this is stuff the
U.S. government might have
paid for in another era.
“It’s discouraging and a
little frightening to see that
federal presence go away,”
Wentworth says. “But on
the other hand, there are
real opportunities for bet-
ter management if it’s more
localized.”
‘The envy of the world’
This was the theme of a
summit Wentworth helped
organize at a Mammoth ski
lodge recently. The sum-
mit drew local leaders and
outdoor recreation busi-
ness owners from around the
West to strategize about cop-
ing with federal budget cuts.
They also swapped suc-
cess stories: Vail, Colorado,
is paying salaries for extra
federal rangers to staff a
popular summer hiking trail;
volunteers in Montana are
doing wildlife counts to help
overworked wildlife biolo-
gists; private money in Cali-
fornia is building new moun-
tain bike trails on federal
land.
Attendees like Allen Piet-
rasanta were quick to cau-
tion that their efforts were
intended to supplement
the federal government,
not advocate a takeover of
the land, as some western
Republicans have wanted.
“We are the envy of peo-
ple in the world for our
public lands,” Pietrasanta
said.”We’re looking to keep
the public in public lands
and looking at creative, new
ways to help manage them.
And keep them healthy and
vibrant.”
Pietrasanta, who lives
in nearby Bishop, Califor-
nia, chairs a group called
the Sierra Business Council,
which helps struggling rural
towns transition into outdoor
recreation economies.
It’s an increasingly lucra-
tive business in the rural
West. Another analysis
from Headwaters showed
that rural western counties
with large recreation econo-
mies are the only ones to not
report population declines
since the Great Recession.
Today, the outdoor recre-
ation and service econo-
mies are generally far larger
than more traditional econ-
omies like mining and log-
ging, though generally,
wages tend to be lower than
those in the natural resource
sectors.
Folks here said they’re
tired of all the hand-wring-
ing and waiting for solutions
from Washington. So they’re
doing what they can locally
for now to handle the boom
in visitation, among other
things.
“People are coming to
America’s public lands and
they’re coming by the mil-
lions,” said Wentworth.
“They love it, it’s free, it’s
their legacy, and we’ve got
to be ready for them.”
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