A cash-strapped Forest Service is looking to close some recreation sites and may make permanent user fees for hiking, boating and camping in America's playground, the national forests.

The agency is beset by record deficits, declining timber sales and an underfunded "healthy forests" law aimed at reducing the risk of destructive wildfires.

Forest Service officials and conservationists agree that Wyoming's national forests are facing substantial cuts in recreation and other budget areas, if the proposed Bush administration budget is adopted by Congress.

Indeed, most Forest Service line items are going down or barely holding their own, with possibly one exception: wildfire fighting. Nationally, the Forest Service's 155 national forests are struggling to meet President Bush's proposal to cut its budget by 5.8 percent to $4.07 billion, from $4.2 billion this year.

That includes the seven national forests in Wyoming. Full-time jobs across the system will lose 1,617 positions, more than half (920) from the men and women who work on facilities, roads and trails.

The National Forest System planning, recreation, wildlife, grazing, forest products, minerals management, and law enforcement will lose 548 positions system-wide. The next biggest cut in jobs is 244 positions in fire preparedness programs.

The president's plan would boost national spending by $56 million for projects to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, but would cut spending in other areas. Chief among the proposed cuts are $40 million for state and private forestry programs, $81 million for maintenance of facilities and $20 million in land acquisition, said Steve Sherwood, Rocky Mountain regional recreation, heritage and wilderness director.

The region, which includes most of Wyoming, all of Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, already has a $7.9 million maintenance and operations backlog, Sherwood said.

Sherwood added the national budget for Forest Service roads and trails will decline from $234 million in 2004 to $189 million in 2006.

Some forest users and environmental groups blame President Bush's Healthy Forest Initiative, aimed at thinning dry Western forests, for diverting money away from the maintenance of forest facilities.

Sherwood denies that.

"This started long before the Healthy Forest Initiative began," he said. "This budget has been flat for more than a decade and hasn't kept up with inflation."

He said the region is starting a Recreation Facilities Master Planning effort, as is being done nationwide, to determine what the federal "niche" is in outdoor recreation.

"Perhaps campsites would better be provided by state parks, and we should concentrate on backcountry experiences," Sherwood said.

Under the master planning effort all 155 national forests have been directed to rank recreation sites by cost, popularity and how closely they match what each forest designates as its likely audience, all by 2007. Low-ranking sites may be shut down, have their seasons trimmed, or have services - such as garbage collection or rest rooms - eliminated.

What that means in Wyoming has yet to be determined.

"Absolutely, we are looking at the possibility of closing some campgrounds and trails in our region," said Sherwood.

Few forests have completed the review, so it is too early to tell how many of the nation's 16,000 recreation sites will be affected. The Bridger-Teton National Forest started its review last summer, as a pilot program for the Intermountain Region, said recreation staffer Sue Marsh.

The B-T is not highly developed, said Marsh, with lots of wildlands and backcountry. The Snake River corridor offers whitewater rafting and fishing, while the backcountry attracts hikers, campers and pack trips, she said. The customer base is split among locals, next-door neighbors from Idaho and Utah, as well as the planners who hire outfitters for extensive trips. A decision about what recreation sites to keep or close is still pending.

Other forests, like the Bighorn National Forest, haven't started on the process. According to the new Public Lands Recreation Opportunities map just published by Wyoming Travel and Tourism, there are 147 Forest Service campgrounds in the state.

Critics sound off

The Forest Service is being starved to death "deliberately," said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE).

"Conservatives have succeeded in convincing the public that, because of the national debt, the public can no longer enjoy the free recreational use of public lands," said Stahl, thus the institutionalization of recreation or user fees.

The notion that public lands are a public commons is now history, Stahl said, replaced by "pay to play"' or temporary user fees.

These fees were first imposed in 1996 and renewed by legislation last year. Scott Silver, executive director of Wild Wilderness, said free-market conservatives want to create a funding crisis that they propose solving with recreation fees and public/private partnerships that will ultimately privatize the management of public lands.

That is exactly what is happening, Silver said. "The ultimate winners will be the recreation industry," he said, "while average Americans lose their free access to public lands."

Franz Matzner, a policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense, noted that the Forest Service road system is also in massive disrepair, with $10 billion in deferred maintenance. Every year, he said, new roads are demanded, but the budget continues to decline: $31 million in fiscal year 2004, $13 million for 2005 and a projected $9 million for 2006.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.