REND LAKE FEES

BENTON, Ill. - The Corps of Engineers, in a long-awaited report, says higher user fees - but not privatization - are needed at Rend Lake.

The report was released recently without fanfare and is circulating through Southern Illinois conservation and environmental circles.

The concept of privatization as a method of coping with high maintenance costs was raised in April 1989 and referred to the Corps for study. The report, however, says the Corps forsees nothing in the immediate future which would require opening the lake and surrounding acres to private development.

Ed Perry, executive vice president of the Benton Area Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday he was not surprised by the results of the study. He said "knowledgable people" told him it would be politically impossible for the Corps to win congressional approval for privatization.

Perry also said he is not totally opposed to higher user fees because expenditures involved in administration of Illinois' second-largest manmade lake may justify them.

The lake, second only to Carlyle Lake among the state's impoundments, provides camping, boating, fishing, hunting and other recreational opportunities.