A legal challenge to a backcountry user fee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park has failed, with a federal judge ruling the National Park Service was within its rights to levy the $4 per night per person fee.

Whether Southern Forest Watch will appeal the ruling hasn't been decided; the group was examining its options in the wake of the ruling Monday to grant the government summary judgment (attached below) in the case.

The challenge to the user fee, filed last summer, raised many issues. Among the charges was that the park staff concocted complaints about the existing backcountry reservation system, that minutes of public meetings were missing from the administrative record, and that some staff discussions of the matter were conducted on private, not government, email accounts. It also argued that federal regulations prohibited fees for backcountry campsites unless they come with "drinking water, access, road, refuse containers, toilet facilities ... (and) reasonable visitor protection," none of which exist, short of privies, in the park's backcountry.

More so, the lawsuit, contended that federal law prohibits the National Park Service at Great Smoky from charging "an entrance or standard amenity recreation fee ... unless fees are charged for entrance into that park on main highways and thoroughfares."

Southern Forest Watch also contended that "(A) 25 percent drop in backcountry camping (from 84,236 in 2012 to 62,863 the following year) since full implementation of this fee is dramatic evidence that this fee has impaired this generation's use of the Smoky Mountains ... "

Great Smoky officials maintained the fee was necessary to afford a better reservations system for backcountry campsites and to police the backcountry.

In his 59-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Phillips cast aside each point raised by Southern Forest Watch, at times saying the group's legal counsel didn't adequately buttress his arguments against the fee and the Park Service. 

"Plaintiffs’ initial reply brief states that 'defendants’ pattern of consistent failure to follow the law in fulfilling their duties is the issue' with respect to these claims. This allegation does not state a valid claim for relief," the judge wrote at one point.

At another point Judge Phillips seemed to agree with Southern Forest Watch that a majority of the public did not support the implementation of the fee. Yet he also seemed to acknowledge the Park Service's longstanding position that public comment periods are not the equivalent of a vote on an issue.

"... the record contains evidence of substantial support for the BCF from the public, including GRSM employees. The support is not overwhelming, or even a majority of the responses received. Nevertheless, there is evidence of more than minimal support for the BCF proposal and 'support for the change' is all that the NPS public participation guidelines require," he wrote. "Neither the plaintiffs nor the defendants have provided any authority to suggest how such 'support' must be measured, nor has the Court found any. Accordingly, in the absence of any such guidance, the Court must reasonably interpret the guidelines as written and not 'substitute its judgment for that of the agency.'

"On this record and under the (Administrative Procedure Act's) narrow standard of review, the Court must conclude that the record does show 'support' for the BCF plan. Plaintiffs’ dispute of the characterization of the level of support does not mean that the facts themselves are in dispute."

The judge wrote that the passion in the case made it understandable to question whether the Park Service shouldn't have found a different solution for caring for the park's backcountry, but said that question was not one for him to answer.

"The plaintiffs and those opposed to the (backcountry fee) are understandably disappointed in (the park's decision to implement the fee) and could easily assume that defendants did not truly consider the public comments. After all, if so much of the public response was negative, how could the defendants have considered that input and still decided to proceed with the BCF?," he wrote. "Indeed, the passionate opposition to the BCF leads a reasonable mind to question whether another conclusion should have been reached, or why the Park management placed such emphasis on benefits for the 'less represented stakeholder group' rather than benefits for the frequent, local Park visitors.

"The legal question for this Court, however, is whether that decision was arbitrary or capricious."

In the end, he found, it was not.