Forest Service budget cuts harm visitor services

Imagine you’re planning a visit to a U.S. national forest. Maybe you need a permit, or maybe you just need up-do-date information. Or maybe you’re reporting a forest fire. You pick up the phone and dial the number for the ranger station. After a few rings, you get a voicemail. It tells you to call a different number, leave a message, and wait for a call back from a Forest Service employee “at their earliest convenience.” You don’t need to imagine it if you’re calling the ranger station for Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA). Right now, that’s the reality. Government shutdowns are failing visitors.

Just before the big Memorial Day weekend rolled out, the Forest Service issued a news release that advised because of “recent staffing changes” the ranger station and headquarters office is shut down for at least the next three weeks. After that, the agency hopes to have the station open again—on June 16—with a three-day-per-week operation.

Government shutdowns are failing visitors, doors closed, phones unanswered

In a “used-to-be” backwards look, folks would normally call the ranger station to get special-use permits over the phone. Say you had a big group that wanted to hike in the Sawtooth Wilderness. Or you wanted to go hunting mushrooms. Right now, just how you go about getting those requisite permits isn’t clear—the Forest Service is mum. Happily, the voicemail does give a phone number to call to report forest fires.

The three-week shutdowns followed by three-day-a-week openings are unprecedented. Both the Recreation Area headquarters and the Visitor Center near Ketchum “used-to-be” open five days a week. No more. “Staffing changes,” will decidedly lead to frustration for the public, and could lead to worse should visitors run into trouble in the area.

“Resign now, get paid until later” effect

But the change in operating hours isn’t just a sudden phenomenon. A story carried by the Idaho Mountain Express says things started getting flaky in February. The Express interviewed Lin Gray, the Executive Director of the Sawtooth Interpretive & Historical Association. Gray pointed toward the federal offer of “resign now, get paid until later” effect on Forest Service operations.

“The staff that would typically manage the SNRA headquarters have all taken the DRP [Deferred Resignation Program] deal, in order to make the best choice for their families and to have a buffer to be able to find another job in this economy,” she said.

“At some point they just stopped all operations at both sites because of all of the deferred resignations,” Gray said. “It was sort of good luck if you could get a person on the phone or someone to open the door,” she told the Express.

Volunteers are stepping in

With no paid federal workers turning on the lights, or answering the phones, where are visitors to turn for help? Volunteers are stepping up to the plate. The historical association, a sort of “friends group” for the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, says it will staff the Redfish Visitor Center and the Stanley Museum seven days a week starting June 13.

Two association volunteers will staff the front desk at the Stanley Ranger station, and will also run out to help at other locations when help is needed. Director Lin told the Express, “This year we are supporting the SNRA by staffing the Stanley Ranger Station three days per week,” Gray said. “Typically, in the past, we would only send one crew member over to the ranger station one day per week to supplement [Forest Service] staff.”

The volunteers will get $33 a day as a mileage allowance and to help cover food expenses. They’ll help folks visiting the recreation area to plan their trips, get directions, and help out young people with Junior Ranger activities. The nonprofit group also pays a six-person summer crew of naturalists and historical specialists.

The former help visitors understand the importance of waste storage and bear safety. Some clean restrooms and drown campfires that visitors have left unattended—all important, necessary work. While government shutdowns are failing visitors, volunteers are trying to take up the slack.

“If nobody’s watching the forest, we don’t know what’s going on.”

There are some things that volunteers just can’t do, though.

Ed Cannady is a board member with the historical association. His past work included being a backcountry recreation manager with more than 30 years of experience in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Cannady has plenty of concerns about the federal worker cutbacks.

One of his biggest concerns is the loss of the SNRA’s private lands administrator.
That employee had recently been promoted and was still in her probationary period when she was fired in February for what was labeled as “poor work performance,” Cannady told the Express. She was one of many terminated during the staffing shakeup.

Cannady says her role was critical. “She did easement inspections to make sure that private landowners were obeying the terms of the easement and not unacceptably altering the landscape,” he explained. “Her position can’t be filled by nonprofits.”

Without that oversight, Cannady warned, the risk of overgrazing, timber theft, and illegal mining activity could rise. “The Sawtooth Valley is one of the few unique, remaining Western valleys in the United States because of the SNRA’s regulations,” he said. “If nobody’s watching the forest, we don’t know what’s going on.”

Cannady also raised concerns about nonprofits like his being left to handle duties that should fall to the federal government. “There’s some danger in that,” he said. “Congress can say, ‘See, you didn’t need that money after all. Trails are still getting cleared and campgrounds are still open.’ It’s left to people like us to pick up the pieces.”

RELATED

• Public lands spared from sale in last-minute budget deal
• National parks face devastating cuts, with majority in jeopardy
• Interior Secretary orders national parks to stay open amid staffing cuts
• National park visitors face reduced access and services across the country
• 2024 national park visitation reaches new heights; officials told not to publicize
• Interior Secretary discusses National Park Service cuts

RVT1211b