It may be hard for some to accept but, long term, it will be good for the community if commercial tour operators follow state law and register for the required permit to take people to the Petroglyph Beach State Historic Site.
That includes collecting $6 per person from customers and sending the money to the state Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation.
The fee was on the books long before the beach was designated a state historic site in 2000, bringing it under the permit requirements. It’s just that no one realized it— not the borough or the businesses that took people to the observation deck, or the state parks agency which sort of lost track of its only site in Wrangell.
Then someone complained last summer about tourists coming ashore at the beach and possibly damaging the tidelands, and the state realized it had missed enforcing the permit requirement the past two decades. News coverage last September alerted the community to the fact that the state wasn’t going to worry about 2023 permits, but operators needed to sign up for 2024.
The state parks division sent notices this past winter to every tour operator it could find online, advising them of the permit and fee requirement. As of last week, just one operator had registered for its permit.
Regardless of any grumpiness over the permit fee and adding $6 to the cost of a tour, everyone needs to understand that getting a count of the number of visitors would increase the chances of getting state money for improvements at the property.
Although Wrangell wishes otherwise, state law does not allow the fees collected for Petroglyph Beach to be dedicated for work at the property. Spending state money is up to the Legislature and governor in the annual budget process. The fees will go into the kitty, same as park fees collected across the state.
But without any numbers to show how many people visit Petroglyph Beach each year, it’s pretty hard for the parks division and area legislators to argue for state spending on the site. There are more needs than money statewide, and a visitor count would help the Wrangell visitor attraction win funding.
“Right now, we have a park that gets no documented use or visitation, making it hard to justify funding approval,” explained the superintendent for state parks in Southeast. “It’s only going to help if the local businesses come on board.”
That’s good advice. There is nothing wrong with charging visitors a fee. Seeing and understanding history is a bargain at a few dollars.
-- Wrangell Sentinel
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