INLAND: For residents, taxes can cover costs but not if they need help as a result of illegal activity. 10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, August 1, 2006By RICHARD K. DE ATLEY and KIMBERLY TRONEThe Press-Enterprise When someone gets lost in the mountains or deserts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Inland agencies take to the trails, peaks and even the skies to rescue them, sometimes at considerable expense.San Bernardino County estimates its large H-3 helicopters -- the kind that can ferry several people at once -- cost $3,000 an hour to operate. Riverside County says its sheriff's deputies cost about $110 an hour.All of that can wind up in a bill sent to the home county of the person who got lost. State law permits such billings, which have nothing to do with whether or not a person was at fault. Officials say it's easier to go after the home counties than the people who were lost."We pretty aggressively seek payments from other counties," said San Bernardino Deputy County Counsel Dennis Tilton, who acts as the sheriff's legal counsel. "We have so many of these (search-and-rescue operations) that we don't feel we can afford to ignore them."For residents inside both counties, rescue is a service they pay for through their taxes. Sometimes judges can impose fines to cover rescue costs and levy punitive fines if someone got lost after trespassing or cutting a padlock to enter a blocked-off area.The counties also have the option of pursuing people in civil court, but Tilton said he could not recall such a lawsuit in 14 years with the San Bernardino County office. "Generally it would have to be pretty clearly a case of negligence, and they would have to have the means to pay," he said.San Bernardino County will assess and bill San Diego County for costs incurred in the 32-hour search for a San Diego woman who was found safe Monday after being reported missing in the San Gorgonio Wilderness, said San Bernardino County spokeswoman Lynne Fischer. She said the costs were still being calculated Tuesday.For large operations over several days, those can be considerable, said San Bernardino County sheriff's Sgt. Michael Follett. He is with the department's Emergency Operations Division that oversees volunteer forces."When you get a missing kid involved, everyone -- rightly so -- wants the world thrown at it right away," Follett said by phone.He said Riverside County was sent a bill for $90,000 after the August 2004 search for 9-year-old David Gonzalez, of Lake Elsinore. He was with his family when he disappeared from the Hanna Flat Campground near Fawnskin. A skull fragment found about nine months later was identified as the boy's.But no one is counting the bottom line when the priority of rescuers is to find people and return them to their families, Riverside County Undersheriff Neil Lingle said."Often times the people who think they know what they are doing and that they understand our elements cause us the most heartache," Lingle said.Tilton said billed counties will occasionally call to negotiate about some items, but only once has his office taken a county -- Kern -- to court over a rescue cost bill. The case was settled before trial, he said.San Bernardino County also expects other counties will send it rescue bills for its citizens, Tilton said.Follett said costs for a rescue operation go beyond what the public sees and last well past the moment someone is found. Rescue workers have to be extracted from remote places, and people who were on call have to be contacted and told not to come."Even though the searches are out of the field for the night, some people are working until 2 or 3 in the morning to plan the next day's search," he said.And beyond that is the work of volunteer search and rescue workers, who donate their time and risk their own equipment, Follett said. "The vast majority is from the volunteers, and that isn't billed," he said.Volunteer searchers "are passionate about what they do, and they take risks doing it," said Dave Simon, director of outdoor activities for the Sierra Club. "You don't want to put them at risk."Equipment costs more than $2,200 per member, according to a 2002 San Bernardino Mountain Search & Rescue Team document. Follett said other specialties, such as cave rescue, can push the cost up to $8,300 when items such as special breathing apparatuses are included.Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster said taxpayers could never fully recover the investment of time and materials a difficult rescue requires.He said there ought to be fines for people who ignore warning signs and attempt to scale rugged mountain terrain wearing flip-flops."It's a growing problem; it gets worse every year," Follett said of misguided adventurers who have to be rescued. "They don't take along any skills. They don't take proper equipment, but they do take their cell phones," he said.
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