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Commercial river floaters may face new fees By PAUL FATTIG Uncle Sam wants to start charging clients of commercial outfitters to float the wild section of the lower Rogue River. The Bureau of Land Management's Medford District and Siskiyou National Forest officials are proposing to charge commercial floaters per-person fees like those paid by private floaters. Private floaters now pay $12 each to run the nearly 30-mile whitewater section between the mouths of Grave and Lobster creeks. Permits are required between May 15 and Oct. 15. "Our proposal is that the outfitters would collect the fee and pay per head at the end of the season," said Karen Gillespie, acting river manager for the BLM. "We are not proposing to charge guides or other employees." Commercial outfitters now pay 3 percent of their gross receipts for operating a business on the river section administered by the agencies. The agencies have scheduled a public meeting Aug. 15 in Grants Pass to discuss the proposal. The session will be from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Express, 105 N.E. Agness Ave. If approved, the fees would go into effect at the beginning of the 2002 float season, Gillespie said. The exact amount has not been decided, she added. The proposal could face rough water among outfitters. "We're not opposed to paying fees which come back to our area to improve the river," said outfitter Becky Smith. "Our problem is that we don't see any accounting of these fees." There is no list of where and how the fees would be used locally, said Smith. She and her husband, Eric, own Orange Torpedo Trips, which has been offering river trips from Merlin since 1969. The funds would likely go to pay salaries and other administrative costs, she said. "It's not their fault," she said of the agencies. "They are short-handed. Their budget constantly decreases. But we don't want these funds to backfill budgets and pay salaries. "It's not us paying the fee," she added. "It's our customers. They would have to pay an extra $12 per head. We don't have a list of projects where we can say this is where that money is going." She also noted that outfitters would be required to pay the Rogue Wild and Scenic River Fee Demonstration project money on top of the 3 percent they already pay for special use permits. Congress authorized the fee demonstration projects to collect recreation user fee in 1996. Agency officials say the $190,000 a year they collect through the fee demonstration project is not enough to pay for maintaining the wild section. "At this point, if we were to get all the cost back, the fee would be around $21 a head," Gillespie said. "We are not proposing that." The costs of managing the system include everything from maintaining nearly two dozen toilets to maintenance of historic sites such as the Rogue River Ranch and Whiskey Creek cabin, she said. There is also the cost of administering the permit system, keeping the river corridor clean and improving boat launch sites and campsites, she added. "The cost for managing the wild section is much higher than the proposed fee," she said. "Our intention is better management on a day-to-day basis on the river." The increased fee would help achieve that goal, she said. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.