Quartzsite LTVA Fee Hike

Van Living Forum

Help Support Van Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

WinneNomad

Active member
Joined
Jan 23, 2021
Messages
39
Reaction score
20
The proposed fee hike at the LTVAs in Arizona I think is going to be very detrimental to the Quartzsite community as well as the campers that look forward to using the La Posa LTVA. Many of the users of the LTVA have minimum incomes and the LTVA has provided a community experience as well as providing a safe and affordable place to stay. Giving many, who may otherwise be homeless, a home for seven months. I feel it will be a cruel blow to many. The fee hikes of $600 and $200 is far too much IMO.

Below is an extract from the BLM LTVS business plan...
This business plan outlines proposed changes to the current recreation fee program for the LongTerm Visitor Areas (LTVAs) located in Arizona. The Business Plan proposes to increase currentfees from $180 to $600 per long-term permit, and from $40 to $200 per short-term permit. Itwould also modify the short-term permit length from 14 days to 30 days.This business plan was prepared pursuant to the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act(FLREA) of 2004 (16 United States Code (U.S.C.) 6801-6814), and the Bureau of LandManagement (BLM) recreation fee program policy.A 45-day comment period will be held from September 6-October 21, 2024. During that timepublic meetings and information sessions will be held online and in the various LTVA locationsto present information about the proposed fee increases. Comments regarding the proposed feemodification can be sent to: BLM Yuma Field Office 7341 E 30th St Ste A Yuma AZ 85365.

https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/f... Areas Draft Business Plan_September 2024.pdf


-Winnie Nomad
 
How hard is it in the US to come up with 100$/month to stay for 6 months = 600$ total?

There are 22 million millionaires in the US and there are a million ways in the US to beg for money with and/or without the internet.

One only needs to beg a hundred thousand of those 22 million millionaires to gift your begging 10 measly bux and you can become one of them!

I can get 100$ /month walking up & down the road getting exercise and picking up cash bottle & can returnables; and so can any able bodied person figure out away to amass the egregiously filthy rich amount of 100$/month.

Not able bodied? Refer back to paragraphs 2 & 3 of this post.

I know it’s exceedingly difficult for most Murahkans with their sense of entitlement and first world problems but come on try and lose ur “poor needy victim complex”.

If it was just me, I’d bump it up to a thousand or even 1200$ for 6 months.
INTJohn
 
Last edited:
How hard is it in the US to come up with 100$/month to stay for 6 months = 600$ total?

There are 22 million millionaires in the US and there are a million ways in the US to beg for money with and/or without the internet.

One only needs to beg a hundred thousand of those 22 million millionaires to gift your begging 10 measly bux and you can become one of them!

I can get 100$ /month walking up & down the road getting exercise and picking up cash bottle & can returnables; and so can any able bodied person figure out away to amass the egregiously filthy rich amount of 100$/month.

Not able bodied? Refer back to paragraphs 2 & 3 of this post.

I know it’s exceedingly difficult for most Murahkans with their sense of entitlement and first world problems but come on try and lose ur “poor needy victim complex”.

If it was just me, I’d bump it up to a thousand or even 1200$ for 6 months.
INTJohn
Bet our government is spending many more of our tax dollars to try to solve the homeless problem. Maybe just put an additional tax on lottery tickets, legal weed and booze should be no problem with funding then and make well regulated public camping available all over the country for those that can no longer afford sticks and bricks! Lol!!!
 
$1200 sounds fair, $600 sounds like a steal to me. That's what I love about flying. The government builds me airports all over the country so I can land, fuel, park, most have loaner cars, many you can shower & sleep in all for free. Mackinac Island is the only one I've paid anything at & no free car use. Our local airport spent $1.1 million on the last resurface. I think your tax $$ was well spent. Bigger ones like South Bend they park or fuel your plane & have great lounges with food, soft drinks, etc. First class all the way whether it's a 1938 or new Leer jet everyone's equal. All MI airports have the same door code.
 
It is not so much the $100 it is coming up with $ 600 all at once! That is a big difference when a monthly income is not huge. I am already saving up for a different $600+ dollar hit that comes around in April on tax day. My extra revenue that pays for that stuff is not a steady stream all year around.

But all it means is after this year I will not stay in the LTVA as there are plenty of other places to stay for no fees.I do not have a big RV with a shower, flush toilet, kitchen sink a big fresh tank and waste water tank etc. Those are the people who most need the LTVA areas. They are also the ones who make it close to unpleasant to be there with the noisy OHV and big generators.

So not a huge loss in my life other than moving around a bit more.
 
Permit cost aside, I envision the LTVA's to soon be the last legal refuge for residential camping.
 
Permit cost aside, I envision the LTVA's to soon be the last legal refuge for residential camping.
Even the LTVAs cannot be considered “residential” camping. That is not what they are designed to provide. You are by legal definition a visitor, not a resident. The LTVA have never been legal areas for “residential camping”. Try not to get confused about that or convince other people that those areas allow anyone to become an actual “resident” of the Long Term Visitor Areas.
 
Last edited:
^^^*But you might be getting confused about the state of Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles and Driver’s licenses potentially accepting proof of payment for a long term LTVA stay to become a resident of the state of Arizona who has or intends to stay 6 months of the year in the state. That is a whole different scenario with its own exceptions and definitions. I am certainly not qualified to sort out what the Arizona DVM thinks about staying at an LTVA.
 
Last edited:
If they go through with this, it will push overcrowding and associated city-like problems into surrounding desert areas, some of which are still pristine and uncrowded. Will be hordes, squatters, trash and toilet paper everywhere in those places. And then they will close them to camping like what just happened near Phoenix/Gold field. May be that's the plan to begin with. Last year I was told by someone in the local blm office that they were considering shutting down some 14 day camping areas around Quartzsite already, I just wasn't sure if they meant shutting them down for all or just making them self-contained RVs only. Palm Canyon road is already a crowded zoo with feces covered by rocks in the middle of camping spots and feces on the bottom of arroyos.
Good bye peaceful camping around Quartzsite outside of LTVAs if they go through with this rate hike, it wont be good anymore.
The "rich" people will be paying $600, $1200, $3000 or $120,000 or whatever else these crazies will come up with next, the rest will start squatting outside of ltvas.
I guess should enjoy these lands to the max for one last time, glad I decided to move out of the country anyway, the future of dispersed camping doesn't look good.

In New Zeland they just shut down camping, limiting it to crowded designated spots with toilets, for non-self contained rigs, and composting toilet does not qualify as such. One can't get a required sticker without plumbing and stuff. This is coming to the US next, toilet paper is a major problem in dispersed sites all over the country. My rig is self contained but many are not and composting toilers arenot the problem - but give people free trash and toilet waste disposal options in "civilized" country. These LTVA shenaningans are going to backfire 100%. LTVAs should be free, given horrendous homelessnes crisis which has no way of resolving in sight, while homes were turned into commodity for invoostors to get rich off others misery, in the "richest country on earth" (haha!) but the prevailing twisted mentality is hopless.
 
Last edited:
^^^why have you made a jump to thinking that the people who were paying the $180 fees to stay in the LTVAs are the type of persons who are going to spread trash around in the dispersed camping areas? That is an extremely rude and inaccurate presumptive statement to associate those of us who have been spending winters in the LTVAs to somehow automatically associate us with that type of people. You are making yourself look like a person who does not think things through before you post a reply. It is definitely not the behavior style of friends from this forum who have spent winters at the LTVA. We (yes me too) spend the off season camping on free dispersed public lands with the same respect we give the land inside of the LTVA. There is no one defined personality type who chooses to stay in the LTVA areas.
 
Last edited:
I wonder if the BLM will wait until the winter season ends to announce their final decision.
 

Latest posts

Top