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Federal Websites Featured in Washington Post Story

Three federal websites that appeal to outdoor enthusiasts were featured today in a special report by Steve Hendrix in The Washington Post Weekend.

"I'm finding the net to be an increasingly useful part of my outdoors kit - at least when used before I head out," Hendrix wrote in his article, "Indoor Surfing, Outdoor Sites."

He recommends these federal sites among those to bookmark.

Federal Lands - "This is one I discovered only recently while searching for information on Bureau of Land Management properties," he wrote, adding parenthetically that BLM lands are the great secret of western camping. "What I found was that some smart bureaucrat has assembled recreation facts on all the great land-holding federal agencies, including BLM, the Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, and the Bureau of Reclamation. You can search state-by-state in more than 20 categories (hiking, water sports, horseback riding, wildlife, hunting, etc.)"

Vice President Gore asked this group of agencies, which also includes the Army Corps of Engineers, to develop this one-stop recreation site, and later gave them a Hammer Award for their achievement in reinventing government. In 1998, GovExec.com named this site as one of the "Best Feds on the Web."

National Forests - "The USDA Forest Service has collected links to all of its holdings, organized here by state," Hendrix wrote. "Each listing also includes the designated wilderness areas within each forest. These are often the safest bets for an unspoiled natural experience..."

National Parks - "This National Park Service Clearinghouse will link you to all sites covering the more than 370 units, 80 million acres of the park system. Browse this one just to get a sense of the astonishing complexity of our most popular public lands agency."

High Impact Agencies

Three of the agencies whose websites Hendrix reviewed are "high impact" agencies - the Bureau of Land Management, the Park Service, and the Forest Service. High impact agencies are those that serve the greatest number of people. Vice President Gore has asked these agencies especially to focus on their customers and strive to accomplish results that Americans care about.

For More Information

Contact Pat Wood at pat.wood@npr.gov