NPS To Secretly Cut Services

[cj001f]

NPS To Secretly Cut Services

 

Compiled by Outside Online

 

March 19, 2004 A memo leaked this week by former National Parks Service (NPS) employees reveals that NPS superintendents were told to cut back on services for national parks without publicly addressing the issue of budget constraints.

 

According to the AP, superintendents have been asked to scale back services in individual parks, including possibly closing visitor centers on national holidays, closing down parks on Sundays and Mondays, ceasing guided ranger tours, eliminating lifeguards on selected beaches, and even closing historic sites.

 

NPS spokesman Dave Barna told the AP that the memo itself is authentic and reflects the Interior Department's desire to avoid public relations problems.

 

"What we don't want is 387 superintendents putting out press releases tomorrow complaining about the Bush administration budget and making us look like we're whining, because we are grateful for the money we get from taxpayers," Barna told the Salt Lake Tribune this week. "We're only suggesting they let us know in advance of the cuts they are planning before they show up on the 'Today Show' locking the park gates."

 

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The memo, which was sent last month and released by a number of former park employees, seems to fly in the face of the desire of the NPS to draw more people to the nation’s parks in the coming months. The initiative, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is titled "See America's National Parks."

 

"In other words, it was trying to jam more people into the parks at the same time it was setting the stage for cuts in essential services," Denny Huffman, a retired former superintendent of Utah’s Dinosaur National Park, told the Salt Lake Tribune.

 

According to the Chronicle, the memo was sent to superintendents of national parks across the northeast from the Philadelphia NPS office.

 

"We will need to be sure that adjustments are taken from as many areas as is possible so that it won't cause public or political controversy," read a copy of the memo, obtained by the Chronicle.

 

Huffman and a group of retired NPS employees, along with Jeff McFarland, director of a professional association of park rangers, believe the memo shows an attempt to mask the facts.

 

"Make no mistake about it. There is a chill over the National Park Service today,'' Huffman told the AP Wednesday.

 

The National Parks Conservation Association announced in a report that parks are suffering from staff shortages and the park facilities’ decline as a result of receiving just two thirds of the funding needed to operate the parks. The budget for 2004 is $1.61 billion dollars.

 

Barna told the AP that the Park Service’s budget has increased in both the Bush and Clinton administrations, but firefighting and damage from Hurricane Isabel in 2003 cost the organization $50 million and $150 million respectively.

[jjd]

According to the AP, superintendents have been asked to scale back services in individual parks, including possibly closing visitor centers on national holidays, closing down parks on Sundays and Mondays, ceasing guided ranger tours, eliminating lifeguards on selected beaches, and even closing historic sites

 

That might be the perfect opportunity to bolt the face of Mt. Rushmore....TR's nose about 5.9, you think?

[Dru]

they should close down all the park roads and make people walk in, like ed abbey proposed. then there would be fewer costs and less users and solitude.

[Off_White]

Well, that would cut down on the weekend use of a lot of N. Cascades and trim the hordes on Rainier, might just have to train those goats to pack.

[jjd]

Desert Solitaire is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. Make people get off their fat asses and experience wild places. I've never been to Yosemite in the summer, only winter, but I've seen photos. What a disgusting site.

[Dru]

Well, that would cut down on the weekend use of a lot of N. Cascades and trim the hordes on Rainier, might just have to train those goats to pack.

 

it'd make a weekend in hidden valley campground a lot less busy too

[jt]

it'd make a weekend in hidden valley campground a lot less busy too

 

No it won't, but at least you could get away with more than 2 cars per campsite.

[cj001f]

I've never been to Yosemite in the summer, only winter, but I've seen photos. What a disgusting site.

Yosemite Valley is like any other "must see" destination in the world - the Milford Sound, Sistine Chapel, the Tower of London, Botticelli's Venus - someplace or thing that has more value for people to have seen than to see.

 

The rest of the park, even in the height of summer and fall, is relatively unpopulated.

[foraker]

99.999% of the people stay in the valley and cruise through Tuolumne. even the hikers tend to limit themselves to certain tramps. i spent most of my time in the eastern part of Yosemite and you rarely run into people.

[erik]

one would think that alot of services could be cut, like the purchase of new vehicles and high tech equipment to enfornce "anti fun" laws. i think the nps and other public land admins should look into not selling their souls to the consecionaires and their demands. people will flock to the national park irregardless is they have a choice of high dollar suites or dirty campgrounds. the national parks are not about goods and services but experiencing the beauty that is encased within their boundries, for each person the beauty and size of mother nature should not be dwarfed by consumerism.

[Ducknut]

this is the NPS game that they play during election years. No politician out there will vote to cut funding to parks, despite the fact that the park system gets 2 or 3 times as much money per acre when compared to the National Forest System, Bureau of Land Management or National Wildlife Refuge System. DOI and OMB are in on this too.