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 collectd at Organ Pipe. The park also gets to keep the money generated from the sale of various forms of annual passes. Click here for more information on the passes available for purchase at Organ Pipe.

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

• Picnic tables and wayside exhibits along North Puerto Blanco Drive
• Rehabilitation of the trail to Bull Pasture
• New audio/visual equipment for the campground amphitheater