Blount County, TN Commission votes to oppose GSMNP user fee

As I understand from a source of mine there was some excitement at the Blount County Commissioners meeting during comments about the GSMNP backcountry user fee that went into effect earlier this month. At the commissioners meeting last week (Feb. 14) the commission voted 14-0 supporting a resolution opposing the fee. Last night (Feb. 21) the resolution opposing the fee was passed by a margin of two votes (11-9).  That seems to be a big shift.

Below is a clip from the The Daily Times of Blount County, TN.

A resolution sponsored by Blount County Commissioner Tab Burkhalter to take a symbolic stand against the new backcountry reservation and permitting process in Great Smoky Mountains National Park passed 11-9 with one abstaining.

Voting yes with Burkhalter included Commissioners Tony Burchfield, Gary Farmer, Jim Folts, Ron French, Brad Harrison, Scott Helton, Holden Lail, Mike Lewis, Monika Murrell and Gordon Wright.

Voting no were Commissioners Richard Carver, Mike Caylor, Roy Gamble, Mark Hasty, Gerald Kirby, Petty Lambert, Kenneth Melton, Jerome Moon and Steve Samples.

Commissioner Tom Greene abstained.

The action has no direct impact on the changes that took effect on Feb. 13, when the park began charging $4 per person, per night for use of the park’s backcountry campsites and shelters.

GSMNP Superintendent Dale Ditmanson, who was a member of the audience, asked the commission to oppose the resolution, adding he was surprised and taken aback when he learned of it.

“The fact is we began the civic engagement process almost two years ago,” he said.

Burkhalter said the county government needed to be more involved in the process. “My purpose in this resolution is to let the park service know that we represent the constituents that use the park.”

Ditmanson said there had been significant newspaper and television coverage of the proposal during the public input process.

There is also the fact that the fee is meeting its purpose, Ditmanson said. “What is completely overlooked in the resolution is the fee is generally improving customer service.”

Blount County resident Dan Lawson said he had volunteered for the backcountry permit office and that the new system was a good one. “To me it is a real asset to backpackers,” he said.

Several audience members spoke in support of the resolution prior to the vote.

John Quillen, who maintains the http://southernforestwatch.org website, has led public opposition to the fee. The organization has threatened to file a lawsuit against imposition of the fee.

Quillen expressed his thanks to the commission for considering the resolution. “We don’t have a voice,” he said. “The federal government didn’t listen to us.”

Carolina Public Press – Great Smoky Mountains National Park backcountry fee

Please see me reporting on the backcountry user fee recently enacted by the National Park Service in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The story was in two parts – here are the links:

Part 1: http://www.carolinapublicpress.org/13665/new-smokies-fee-prompts-modern-echo-of-historic-culture-clash

Part 2: http://www.carolinapublicpress.org/13716/smokies-enacts-4-fee-amid-tangle-of-politics-history-criticism

And the intro to part 1 is here:

While working on her dissertation at UNC-Chapel Hill, environmental historian Kathryn Newfont conducted a series of interviews in the late 1990s with female environmentalists from Western North Carolina for the Southern oral history program. One of the interviewees, in particular, stood out. She was Esther Cunningham, a Sunday school teacher and retired beautician from Carson, a small community in rural Macon County.

In 1980, Cunningham pioneered a successful defense of public land from gas and oil exploration interests in the Nantahala National Forest. Her grassroots effort ultimately led to the creation of the Asheville-based Western North Carolina Alliance, now considered to be one of the most effective conservation organizations in the Southern Appalachians. While the late Cunningham was an unwavering defender of forests, Newfont, who is now an associate professor of history and faculty chair of the Ramsey Center for Regional Studies at Mars Hill College, sensed something different about her approach to land protection.

After all, Cunningham didn’t fit the lifestyle or image of an environmentalist; she was more grandmother than tree hugger.

“It took me a long time to understand her view of protecting forests,” Newfont said. “Once I understood her perspective, it had a lot of explanatory power of public land politics in the Blue Ridge.”

Her approach, Newfont said, was less rooted in the mainstream aim of protecting wilderness for recreation, solitude or philosophy. Rather, Cunningham’s was a more matter-of-fact outlook steeped in decades – even centuries – of rural Appalachian tradition, economics, and culture that’s as basic to the rural way of life in the Blue Ridge as canning tomatoes.

It’s what Newfont calls “commons environmentalism” – a conservation platform based on a multiuse commons ethic. And according to Newfont, grasping Cunningham’s approach to land and resource protection may shed light on how long-time residents of the southern mountains view the management of public land, forests and undeveloped spaces.

That viewpoint is one that’s surfacing again in a current disagreement among some backcountry users of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and its management. Beginning today, the park will begin charging a $4 per-person, per-day fee for backpackers. It will also expand its reservation system. According to a press release on the changes, “The fee will be used to provide increased customer service for backcountry trip planning, reservations, permits and the backcountry experience.”

A postcard issued around 1940 captured President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaking at the dedication of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The postcard is now housed in the North Carolina Postcard Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill. Click to view full-size image.

Encompassing more than 520,000 acres located in portions of eastern Tennessee and in Haywood and Swain counties in North Carolina, the park is one of the only major national parks that does not charge an entrance fee. However, in 2011, the park proposed a measure to begin collecting a backcountry permit fee and implementing a reservation system for shelters and backcountry campsites. By revamping the current backcountry reservation system and adding a fee, park managers have said they hope to protect backcountry natural resources and improve visitor services, public education and safety.

But the proposal, which was opened to public comment, met with a concentrated and fierce backlash. And now, some say, the fee’s future may be argued to court.

“When people of the Southern Appalachians see a threat to (access the forest),” Newfont said, “be prepared for a fight.”