YES YOU NEED A PERMIT ON PUBLIC LAND!
By Del Albright,
Ambassador, BlueRibbon Coalition
Commercial,
competitive or organized group events or activities ALL require a permit
to be held on public land, and depending on the level of environmental review, REQUIRE
at least 6 (six) and up to 12 (twelve) months to process.
Businesses and
clubs/organizations need to pay particular attention to the permit process as
it can sneak up on you quick! We’re talking BOTH public land agencies --
BLM and USFS. This blog will focus on the BLM permit process, but the
USDA Forest Service (USFS) is about the same.
Depending on the
scope of your activity or event, you might have to cover some healthy Cost
Recovery to recover costs associated with monitoring, law enforcement,
enviro-studies, inventories, travel, administration, etc. Again, the minimum
time frame for submitting a COMPLETE permit application is SIX MONTHS
ahead of time. Just figure on it and GET YOUR PERMIT started well ahead
of time.
DO I NEED A PERMIT?
The Pre-application Interview Checklist
for events on public land involving vehicular use typically includes the
following questions:
·
Are you
charging a fee?
·
Do you
expect to make money on the event or is the fee to cover expenses?
·
Will there
be a competition?
·
Will you
advertise, have a public sign up page, take reservations?
·
Will you
mark a course?
·
Will there
be cash prizes?
If you answered yes to ANY of these,
you NEED a permit. So yes, if you advertise on a website, have a sign up
page (even if you are NOT charging a fee), you ARE advertising and must have a
permit. I like to look at it in simple terms, you are using public land
to your advantage or commercial gain, so get a permit.
You should note
that if there will be any vending (selling on site), your permit just got more
complicated (and will cost more).
These permits are
called Special Recreation Permits (SRP’s) and depending on permit availability,
are usually not hard to get; they just take planning well ahead of time!
Get your permit
well in advance of your event – perhaps a YEAR before the activity would
be a good target.
Here are some links
for more research and information from my good land use buddy, John Stewart:
Awesome! Informational! Educational!
ReplyDelete:) Bebe