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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Area Cabin Owners Get Friendly Ear Chenoweth, Crapo And Craig Back Them Against Forest Service

Recreation was the issue, but the testimony was anything but light-hearted at a Saturday hearing on Forest Service cabin permits.

Cabin owners are terrified of the possibility of permit fee increases of up to 20 times what they’re paying to use federal land, testified Stephen Lunt of Oregon.

Adrian DeVries of Coeur d’Alene spoke of fixed-income retirees like himself and his wife potentially losing the Lake Pend Oreille site her family has visited for 65 years.

Arthur Neill of Montana said widows are struggling to maintain their rustic cabins.

They found a receptive - indeed, an encouraging - audience in Rep. Helen Chenoweth, Rep. Mike Crapo and Sen. Larry Craig.

The three Idaho Republicans expressed dismay that the agency wants to raise fees to make it comparable with the cost of leasing private vacation property.

Comparing the two is like comparing “apples to chain saws,” Chenoweth said during the hearing at North Idaho College.

That’s because cabin owners must allow the public access to their lots but often can’t get to their cabins half of the year. If they can make improvements at all, it can’t be done without government permission.

“Should the government decide not to renew the permit, I stand to lose everything,” said Albert Pollmar. “Many thousands of dollars and a major part of my net worth are at risk.”

Pollmar and his brother bought a cabin in 1989 in Washington’s Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. But much of the testimony has dwelled on families that have had leases for generations - people such as Adrian and Betty DeVries.

Their permit fees have jumped from $135 in 1973 to $1,076 in 1998, Adrian DeVries said. The fees are slated to increase to $1,750 in 1999.

Although some vacation homes are modern, discussion focused on cabins with outhouses and woodburning stoves. Chenoweth noted the families that have kept those cabins in repair.

“They are part of the West’s rich cultural heritage,” she said.

Craig spoke of an out-of-control Forest Service, which needs to be reminded that it administers laws, and doesn’t make them.

Crapo compared cabin permit increases to road and trail closures, which he believes are other ways of keep people from enjoying the national forests.

Many people have the mistaken idea that cabin permits are held only by wealthy families, Crapo said. Ironically, he added, raising fees so “regular Idaho folks” can’t afford them will end up making the cabin sites affordable only to the elite.

The permits date back to the 1920s and ‘30s as a way of encouraging recreation when forest lands were far less accessible than they are today.

While many cabins have been inherited, Pollmar noted that some people buy old cabins and then get permission to replace them with new homes.

About 50 people attended Saturday’s hearing. Among those in the audience was David Wright, supervisor of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

Wright said before the hearing that he doesn’t get complaints that cabin owners are getting a good deal at the public expense.

The only time there’s much discussion is when the agency decides not to renew permits because it decides there’s a more pressing public use for the land, as it did recently with island cabin sites at Priest Lake.

Many forest visitors probably aren’t even aware that those cabins are on public land, Wright said.

The issue for the agency, he said, is to decide what’s a fair price for the right to use the property.

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