Charges planned for Lake Mead

Jace Radke

Thursday, Nov. 4, 1999 | 11:46 a.m.

New fees

A meeting has been scheduled for Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Lake Mead Marina, where boaters and citizens will be able to ask National Park Service representatives questions about the new fees.

A tank of gas and maybe a picnic lunch was all it used to cost Las Vegans to beat the heat at Lake Mead, but this spring the National Park Service will tack on another cost when new entry and use fees take effect at the lake.

The proposed fees have left some boaters wondering just how much it will cost to use the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

"Most boaters are agreeable to a nominal entrance fee, and we've known that one would probably be imposed, but that combined with a use fee is going to make it expensive to go to the lake," Lake Mead Boat Owners Association Board Member Diane Palmer said.

The entrance fee is $3 a person or $5 a vehicle for a five-day pass or visitors can buy a $20 annual pass, according to Recreation Area Fee and Business Manager Dan Yeager.

"The more visitation we have the more we need additional funding to upgrade restrooms and decrease the maintenance backlog in the recreation area," Yeager said. "Eighty percent of the money collected will go back into the park to improve services, and 20 percent goes back to the park service for other areas."

The park service operates water treatment plants, sewer treatment facilities, law enforcement, search and rescue, firefighting and maintains 240 miles of paved road and 800 miles of dirt road. In all the recreation area has an infrastructure worth about $1 billion.

Along with the entrance fee, boaters will be charged a use fee of $10 for a five-day pass and $5 for each additional boat they plan to use at the lake. Boaters can buy an annual pass for $20 for their first boat and $10 for each additional boat.

The rates are similar to fees charged at other national parks and recreation areas, Yeager said. Zion National Park in Southern Utah charges $10 a car for a seven-day pass and $20 for an annual pass.

The use fee at the lake will only be applied to motorized vessels including personal watercraft, but not canoes, rafts, tubs or other non-motorized floatation devices.

"It takes money to rebuild boat launches and keep all the area's facilities available for visitors," Yeager said. "We also want to use some of the fee money to start to add restrooms and other facilities out on the water, so that when you stop at some of the lake's deserted beaches you don't have to deal with someone else's waste."

The park service estimates that the fees could raise about $4 million a year.

Palmer, who has boated at Lake Mead for more than 30 years, said she wants to see the area kept up, but wonders if the fees will stop people from enjoying the lake.

"I've always been a sailboater, and when I was raising my four children we took advantage of the lake," Palmer said. "We didn't have a lot of money and if not for the lake not costing us anything I wouldn't have been able to take my kids anywhere.

"We still have a lot of young families that use the lake for recreation, and I see this as possibly having a big effect on them."

Boaters who dock their boats at the lake's marinas already pay a monthly slip fee of about $7 a foot for the length of their boats and registration fees, Palmer said.

Yeager said the entrance and use fees are nominal and maintained they won't discourage people from using the recreation area.

"I think people will see the benefits of this, but it's not going to be a magic wand where they see results immediately," Yeager said. "It takes time, but people entering the area will know that we are trying to protect it for future generations.

"Historically, instituting fees cuts down on crime and makes the park more family oriented."