Staff and Services Disappearing at U.S. National Parks

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, May 28, 2004 (ENS) - Bush administration officials continue to mislead the public about the declining state of the national park system, according to a group of retired National Park Service employees.

A new study reveals a combination of significant cuts in budgets, staff and visitors services across the national park system, a finding that is in contrast to the rhetoric of Interior Department and Park Service political appointees.

Bush officials are using "smoke and mirror tactics to hide the fact that America's national parks are in bad shape and are getting worse," said Bill Wade, former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park and spokesman for the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees.

The coalition consists of more than 250 former non-political career employees of the Park Service, including several former directors, deputy directors and regional directors, as well as some 90 former superintendents or assistant superintendents.

The group surveyed 12 parks in the past six weeks and found that eight of 12 are operating with less money than last year; all 12 have fewer employees in 2004 compared to 2003; and six of 12 already have or will cut visitor center hours or days.

National Park Service Director Fran Mainella (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

The reductions in budgets, resource protection, opportunities for visitors and safety cited at all 12 of the national parks surveyed by the coalition "flatly contradict the claims that Park Service Director Fran Mainella made before Congress," said Laurel Angell, attorney for the Campaign to Protect America's Lands.

"The fact that, in nearly every case, these cuts have not been publicly disclosed suggests that the National Park Service has elected to continue their controversial policy of covering up park cuts and hoping that Congress, the public and the news media will not find out about them," Angell said.

Mainella gave an upbeat account of the national park system in testimony to the U.S. House Appropriations Committee on March 24 - one week after the coalition released internal Park Service memos directing park superintendents to make cuts in summer 2004 park services.

The memos instructed Park Service employees to then mislead the news media and public about the cuts by referring to cuts in services and maintenance projects as "service level adjustments."

But Mainella downplayed the memos and told committee members that the parks would be open, resources protected and "outstanding visitor services provided."

In addition, she said the Park Service "has more funds per acre, per employee, and per [visitor] than any time in our history."

That statement is "terribly misleading and part of it is downright untrue," Wade said.

Critics say the Bush administration is undermining the conservation and education missions of the Park Service. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

Although the Park Service's $2.3 billion fiscal 2004 budget is the agency's largest ever, some 85 percent of the parks are "getting less money for operations this year than they did in 2003," Wade said.

When adjusted for inflation the Park Service's operating budget has dropped some 20 percent in the past 25 years. During this time the park system has increased by more than 50 units and annual visitors have increased some 60 million, said the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees.

On average, U.S. national parks are operating with only two-thirds of the needed funding - the system-wide annual shortfall is some $600 million.

Critics say the Bush administration has slowed the average increase of the Park Service's budget and has siphoned off operating funds for other purposes.

For example, more than $170 million in operating funds have been diverted to pay for damage from Hurricane Isabel, homeland security and mandated pay increases.

In addition, the administration has failed to ask Congress for additional funds to pay for tourism promotion and competitive outsourcing studies.

Inadequate operational funding puts the agency in a deeper hole with regard to the massive maintenance backlog that plagues the national park system, Wade warned.

The maintenance backlog across the national park system is estimated at some $5 billion.

Moab, Utah fourth graders once studied the water cycle at Arches National Park. (Photo courtesy NPS)

The agency's foreign travel spending for all of 2004 was slated to be some $300,000 - an amount that equals $900 per park.

"Token travel cuts will not get the job done," Wade said.

There is little hope the overall funding situation will improve next year - the administration's budget request for fiscal year 2005 is essentially flat compared to this year.

Park advocates are not looking for instant solutions to the funding woes that plague the park system, Angell said.

"We understand these are tough times," she said. "But we are calling on the administration to spend wisely."

But another group that monitors the health of the national parks warns that Washington's Olympic National Park is chronically threatened by an annual funding shortfall of more than $6 million. In a report released Thursday the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) says that the shortfall will impact the experiences of visitors this summer and limits the National Park Service's ability to care for Olympic's wildlife, cultural artifacts, and buildings.

"Memorial Day weekend visitors to Olympic will be surprised to learn that a crown jewel national park isn't able to provide the protection its natural and cultural resources need, nor the services visitors expect and deserve," said Heather Weiner, NPCA's regional director for the Pacific Northwest.

According to NPCA's new State of the Parks analysis, a year-long study, Olympic's overall stewardship capacity is rated "poor," despite findings that existing natural and cultural resources are in "fair" to "good" condition overall.

The number of staff hired for the one million acre Olympic National Park this summer has been reduced from 130 seasonal rangers in 2001 to only 25 this year. Permanent rangers are also missing from Olympic: just 120 permanent staff fill the park's 202 positions.

One of the park's two fisheries biologist positions will remain unfilled this year, the aquatic ecologist position will be eliminated, and a wildlife biologist position will be lapsed although there are ongoing threats to Olympic's declining wild salmon.

Budget cuts have forced the Park Service to close the visitors center at Olympic Park two days a week. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

Normally 140,000 visitors get to talk to a ranger while hiking Olympic's 900 miles of trails, but this year, only 20,000 visitors will see a ranger on the trails. Restrooms will not be cleaned at least 28 days this summer, and trash collection and mowing operations will be drastically reduced, the NPCA says.

Olympic National Park protects one of the few temperate rainforests in the world and the largest contiguous block of old-growth coniferous forest in the country. The park contains some of the best remaining habitat for several endangered species, is inhabited by 15 kinds of animals and eight kinds of plants found nowhere else, protects the largest population of Roosevelt elk in its natural environment in the world.

The park's diverse territory of mountains, forests and coast are linked together by many species of native salmon and steelhead in its more than 3,000 miles of streams.

Career officials with the Park Service are long familiar with tight budgets and spending constraints, Wade added, but the situation has become far worse - and much more politicized - under the Bush administration.

"When I was a park superintendent, people were encouraged to be honest and forthright with the public about the state of the parks - that is no longer the case," said Wade, a 32 year veteran of the Park Service.

The coalition is calling on administration officials to level with the public about the funding gaps at the national parks, to stop muzzling park managers about conditions in the parks and to allocate appropriated funds directly to the parks.

Given the likelihood that adequate budgets will not materialize anytime soon, Wade said it is also time for the nation to step back and determine if the systems in place to manage the national parks are effective.

"It is does not make sense to keep chipping away at the margins," he said. "We need to recommit to the mission of the National Park Service."