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RV park nears completion Photo by Dani Dodge Standing atop part of the system that will allow for sewage hookup at every campsite, Jackson County Parks employee Randy Hutton overlooks what will become Emigrant Lake's state-of-the-art recreational vehicle park. County's keeping up with the growing needs of motorized campers By DANI DODGE ASHLAND -- The county parks department is completing its biggest public project in 10 years -- a 32-space state-of-the-art RV park at Emigrant Lake. And it expects crowds when the site is finished in July. "There's very few publicly owned RV campgrounds in Southern Oregon, and there's none in Ashland," said Randy Hutton, a Jackson County administrative assistant who has been shepherding the project for three years. "Just the location and the view will draw people in, and with the fact we can accommodate the largest RVs on the road today, we feel it will be pretty popular." In the past, people would pull their big, elegant recreational vehicles into Emigrant Lake, see the limited campground, and turn around. This campground, though, will accommodate the most modern of RVs with water, sewer and 50-amp electrical hookups at each site. Even RVers watching television with both air-conditioners running won't get blacked out when they turn on the computer to e-mail their kids back in Wisconsin. Additionally, several of the sites are only 40 feet or so from the lake. You can't get much closer than that with a fifth-wheel in Southern Oregon. "We expect after the first couple years, it will be totally self-supporting," Hutton said. Local RVers agree there's a need for more campsites. "We had our Fourth of July company picnic at Emigrant Lake," said Ron Havice, a sales representative at Triple A RV Center Inc. who loves to take his own family RV camping on weekends. "Most of the campsites they had at the time were crowded and overburdened--that's getting to be the scenario for most of the area." And with business booming at his store, he's glad to see some campground expansion and upgrades going on. "Any new RV parks with recreation involved has gotta be a huge plus for the area," Havice said. "Huge plus." Nationally, the number of people tooling around in RVs is skyrocketing, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, based in Reston, VA. In 1999, recreational vehicle shipments were up 9.7 percent, the best year since 1978. "We definitely see growth in the industry," said Tom Faludy, chairman of Go RVing Coalition, an industry promotion group. "It's had sustained growth in the last 20 years and even bigger growth in the last four or five years." He attributes the sales to the increasing number of baby boomers turning 50, and young families wanting to share the outdoor experiences with their children. County parks administrators realized a few years ago, the current campground wasn't keeping up with the needs. In 1997, Portland-based Green Works was hired to do an assessment of the Emigrant Lake recreational area. They came up with a four-stage plan for improving the park and its revenues. The new campground is the first phase. Other phases will include rehabilitating the existing 41-space campground, building a walk-in campsite with yurts or cabins, and improving the group campground. This first phase, the 32-space campground at the northern end of the lake, will cost $650,000. The majority of money will come from state and federal grants, much of which is collected from fees that go with the sale of each RV. The county is kicking in another $184,000 from its park enterprise fund that is made up of park fees, state monies and general fund dollars. Parks program manager Paul Korbulic said the next few phases of the project may slow down because of the county's current budget crunch, but this phase is funded. "Some of the nicer amenities, like the final landscaping, won't be done until next year," he noted. Dennis Nicholas, the park operations supervisor, said this will put Emigrant on the cutting edge of camping comfort. "We just moved from the '60s to the 21st century," he said. "We're all ecstatic." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA