Investigations ordered into wilderness therapy camps in Utah and elsewhere

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Interior and Agriculture departments need to launch investigations into so-called wilderness therapy programs that take place on federal land, House members said today.

The Government Accountability Office released a report Wednesday describing 10 cases where teenagers have died in wilderness therapy or other residential treatment programs, including five deaths in Utah.

Parents who lost children testified before House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller's panel Wednesday, including Bob Bacon, who lost his son, Aaron Bacon, in a Utah program in 1994.

In a request sent to the departments' Inspector Generals today, Miller, D-Calif., and House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said they want them to investigate the programs held on federal land.

The GAO said Wednesday that many of these programs take place on Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service or other federal lands.

"We believe that it is incumbent upon those tasked with managing our nation's lands to implement policies and safeguards to ensure that our public lands are not used in the abuse of troubled children," the lawmakers wrote.

Lawmakers and parents want to create some type of federal regulation of these private programs so other families do not have to suffer. Utah has had regulations in place since 1990, but at least one parent, who lost his son in 1994, said they are not enough.

"Utah doesn't have the finances or the people to enforce it," Bacon told lawmakers Wednesday. Bacon's son Aaron Bacon died at the now-closed North Star Expeditions in 1994.

While some parents claim wilderness therapy or other residential treatments have helped their children struggling with drug addictions or other problems, Bob Bacon and a panel of other parents whose children died in similar programs told the House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday they were misled about the programs' qualifications, staffs' expertise and how their children would be handled once enrolled.

Gregory Kutz, GAO's managing director of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, said the programs "took advantage of desperate parents looking for help for their teenagers."

"The parents were pretty much told what they wanted to hear," Kutz said.

Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., who requested the GAO report in 2005, said the abuse described in the GAO report was "inhuman."

"The federal government has completely failed to grasp the urgency of this situation," Miller said.