
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 1, 1990                   TAG: 9006010645
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BIG CONCESSIONS

A POP SONG of some years ago, celebrating America's bounty and beauty, rhapsodized: "This land was made for you and me." No part more so, it would seem, than the national parks with their stately mountains, rippling streams and deep forests.

But the money that Americans bring into the parks is made for those who run the concessions: campgrounds, hotels, restaurants and assorted services. An investigation ordered by Interior Secretary Manual Lujan Jr. found that in 1988, park concessionaires made half a billion dollars in gross profits. Of that sum they returned $12.5 million, or 2.5 percent, to the Treasury.

Investigators say that the Interior Department, which runs the 355-unit parks system, loses many millions of dollars a year because long-term contracts give virtual monopolies to concessionaires. Most concessionaires for such services as hotels and restaurants don't pay franchise fees according to industry norms.

The groundwork was laid in the 1960s, when the government was eager to draw visitors to the parks and provide services for them. It signed many 30-year contracts with terms favorable to concessions operators; some have even been allowed to own facilities in the parks. Lujan wants to change things: Increase fees charged to concessionaires, shorten the contracts' span and use the added income to upgrade parks.

The contracts haven't been entirely one-sided; some have brought about major physical improvements within parks. Still, the greatest benefits therefrom have gone to the concessionaires.

"Our national parks were established for people, not profiteers," says Rep. Bruce F. Venton, D-Minn., who chairs a House subcommittee on national parks. "They are to be preserved and protected - not prostituted."

Surely not all the concessionaires deserve to be tarred with the "profiteering" brush. But while profit-making can be legitimate on public property, the profits should be shared fairly with those who own the property and who make the profits possible. That's us. Lujan is on the right track in trying to inject greater equity into the process.

by CNB