Your Fee Dollars At Work

Where Does Your Money Go?

National park lands are not free. Protecting our natural and cultural heritage and providing a safe, enjoyable, and educational place to visit requires substantial funding. Although your taxes help offset the costs of operating parks like Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, they do not cover all of the costs. As expenses to maintain and staff the parks rise each year, government funding is unable to keep up.

In an attempt to address this shortfall, Congress passed the Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act, which helps spread some of the operating costs among the people who use the parks.

Organ Pipe is a fee park. Organ Pipe Cactus keeps every dollar collected. Funds generated by those fees are used to accomplish projects that the park has been unable to fund through yearly Congressional allocations. Entrance and campground fees are the two most common fees that are collected at Organ Pipe. The park also gets to keep the money generated from the sale of various forms of annual passes. For more information regarding fees at National Park Service sites please visit the Your Fee Dollars At Work page.

Recent projects at Organ Pipe Cactus made possible by your fees:

• Repair of the road surface on the Ajo Mountain Drive.
• Replaced the plat ID plaques on the Nature Trail
• Construction of an ADA walkway to the restroom at Alamo Canyon
• Resurfacing the stucco wall on the amphitheater trail

2018 Funded Fee Projects:

• Replace outdated/damaged interpretive wayside panels on North Pinkley and Victoria Mine Trails.
• Rehabilitate Estes Canyon and Bull Pasture Trails.
• Remove encroaching vegetation from Quitobaquito pond for visitor use.
• Repair and preserve Gachado Ranch House to improve visitor experience.