Oregon
Oregon State Parks seeks approval for new, improved campsite reservation system
The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department wants to create a new website where visitors reserve state park campsites. The cost? $13.35 million for five years.
If approved, the website could go live as early as late 2024 or early 2025, officials said.
“Visitors (would) notice a new website specific to Oregon State Parks with a new look, improved search functions, more visuals, greater accessibility and improved mobile compatibility,” OPRD spokeswoman Stefanie Knowlton said.
The state agency’s contract with website vendor ReserveAmerica.com expires in 2025 and could not be renewed. That opened up a competitive bidding process in 2023.
For the next website, parks officials decided on a platform called Recreation Hub, designed to “modernize and simplify campground management,” according to the department.
The platform is owned and run by Conduent and Booz Allen Hamilton, a multinational corporation that also runs Recreation.gov, the federal government’s website for booking campsites and permits across the nation’s public lands.
OPRD will ask the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Commission for approval of the contract at a meeting April 23-24 in Cannon Beach. Public comments are open for the decision.
Knowlton said parks officials and visitors tested different platforms over a 10 month period and decided Recreation Hub “was the most intuitive and accessible option.”
“Beyond improving tools available for visitors to make state park reservations, it will also offer agency staff reservation management, volunteer management, website content management, retail operations and visitor support features,” Knowlton said in an email.
Knowlton said the fee for booking a campsite — which currently sits at $8 per transaction — would not change in the short term.
However, she laid out that could be a possibility in the future.
“The $8 reservation fee has not changed in 15 years,” she said. “There is not a specific plan to change the fee, but leadership is discussing what amount makes sense for the future.”
The new website would cost $2.67 million per year. OPRD will ask to sign a five-year contract for $13.35 million.
The previous website, ReserveAmerica, cost $2.1 million per year, Knowlton said, “but it did not include all the functions that the new site will.”
Knowlton said the cost of the website would be paid by reservation fees. If the reservation fees don’t cover the full cost of the website, additional funds would come from the agency’s budget.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors.
Three Oregon lawmakers say they plan to introduce a bill that would bar utilities from raising rates if they have unresolved wildfire lawsuits for three or more years, describing it as an effort to hold PacifiCorp accountable as the utility faces a series of lawsuits stemming from the deadly 2020 wildfires that ravaged the state.
Republican state Reps. Jami Cate, Virgle Osborne and Ed Diehl announced their proposal in a statement Monday, on the heels of an approved rate increase for PacifiCorp customers and a federal lawsuit against the electric power company.
The federal government sued PacifiCorp last week over the Archie Creek Fire, which ignited in Oregon’s Douglas County in September 2020 and burned more than 200 square miles, about half of which was federal land. The complaint accuses the company of negligence for failing to maintain its power lines to prevent wildfires. In its filing, the government says it brought the suit to recover “substantial costs and damages.”
A PacifiCorp spokesperson said in an emailed statement Monday that the company was working with the U.S. government to resolve the claims.
“It is unfortunate the U.S. government decided to file a lawsuit in federal district court, however PacifiCorp will continue to work with the U.S. government to find reasonable resolution of this matter,” the statement said.
The federal lawsuit was filed on the same day the Oregon Public Utility Commission approved a 9.8% rate increase for PacifiCorp’s residential customers next year. In its rate case filings, the company said its request to increase rates was partly due to higher costs stemming from wildfire risk and activity.
When the new rate takes effect in January, PacifiCorp rates will have increased nearly 50% since 2021, according to the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, which advocates on behalf of utility customers.
The three lawmakers said they will introduce their bill in the upcoming legislative session, which starts in January.
“The federal government is doing the right thing by filing this lawsuit, and we stand firmly behind it,” Osborne, who is set to be the future bill’s co-chief sponsor, said in a statement. “PacifiCorp needs to pay up and take responsibility for the destruction they’ve caused, and putting a stop to rate hikes is the best way to achieve it.”
PacifiCorp is poised to be on the hook for billions in damages in the series of lawsuits over Oregon’s 2020 fires.
The company has already reached two settlement agreements over the Archie Creek Fire, including one for $299 million with 463 plaintiffs impacted by the blaze and another for $250 million with 10 companies with commercial timber interests, according to its website.
In other litigation, an Oregon jury in June 2023 found it liable for negligently failing to cut power to its 600,000 customers despite warnings from top fire officials and determined it should have to pay punitive and other damages — a decision that applied to a class including the owners of up to 2,500 properties. Since then, other Oregon juries have ordered the company to pay tens of millions to other wildfire victims.
The wildfires that erupted across Oregon over Labor Day weekend in 2020 were among the worst natural disasters in state history, killing nine people and destroying thousands of homes.
— The Associated Press
On Wednesday at 2:18 a.m. the National Weather Service issued a wind advisory valid from 10 p.m. until Thursday 10 a.m. for North Central Oregon and Central Oregon.
The weather service states, “South winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts up to 45 mph expected.”
“Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result,” adds the weather service. “Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high profile vehicles. Use extra caution.”
Advance Local Weather Alerts is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to compile the latest data from the National Weather Service.
Oregon
Oregon lawmakers to introduce bill barring utility rate increases amid unresolved wildfire lawsuits
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