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Water's fine, money's not at Applegate The Forest Service can't properly operate all of the lake's recreational areas By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune APPLEGATE DAM - After a severe drought left Applegate Lake high and dry last year, the reservoir is once again full to the brim. Water laps rocky beaches drenched only by the sun a year ago. Boat ramps no longer lead to a sea of dusty boulders. But a drought in another form faces the Forest Service, which maintains the 12 campgrounds, seven day-use areas and three boat ramps in the upper reaches of the Applegate River around the lake. Financial resources are drying up, limiting the agency's ability to properly maintain all the recreational sites, said Erin Connelly, ranger in charge of the Applegate district in the Rogue River National Forest. "My desire is to offer high-quality recreation experiences to the public but, given the increasing cost of doing business and declining budgets, we're simply not able to operate all developed sites to a standard that meets public demand, health, safety and cleanliness expectations," she said. The lake draws up to a quarter of a million visitors each year to fish, swim, camp, picnic and hike. The agency already has closed the Flumet Flat Campground just upstream from McKee Bridge this year. Other sites could be closed or their use modified, officials said. Before making decisions on the remainder of the sites, the agency wants public input on how to best manage them, both this year and in the long term. Comments can be sent to: Mike Ricketts, Applegate Ranger District, 6941 Upper Applegate Road, Jacksonville, OR 97530-9314. Ricketts, a recreational specialist, can also be reached via e-mail at [email protected]. Information on the district's recreation program, including an analysis and proposals, is available on the Internet at www.fs.fed.us/r6/rogue. Connelly hopes to receive comments by May 20, although input would be welcome throughout the summer, she said. "We want to provide quality facilities for folks rather than try to spread limited funds all over in an attempt to do everything," she said. "We've been looking at those facilities that have been getting less use than others," she added. "But we're not so much looking at closures as we are modifications that might help us keep more campgrounds open." When the Applegate Dam was completed in 1980, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had built many of the recreational sites, turned them over to the agency. "But our budget never increased to accommodate the additional sites," Connelly said, adding the agency has been tightening its budgetary belt ever since. In fact, recreational funding declined 14 percent in the last five years, according to Ricketts. With the return of a full pool, the agency wants to provide as much recreational opportunities as possible, given the financial limitations, he said. "The public can help us identify sites they would like to see their money invested in," he said. "We have to put that money somewhere. We have to upgrade a number of sites, but we can't upgrade all of them." Two of the more popular camping sites include Hart-Tish campground on Applegate Lake and the Squaw Lakes camp sites, he said. "We didn't open Hart-Tish last year because there was no ability to use the boat ramp," he said. "Now we have the water." Based on estimates of past use, he says between 200,000 and 250,000 visitors use the recreational sites each year. "That's a lot of use," said Ricketts, who has been a forest employee since 1975. "We want to make sure we get as much out of the sites as we can." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.