Bush Policy Sparks `Revolt' By Ex-Park Officers

[tlcandie]

http://news.tbo.com/news/MGA5TLBX1KD.html

<snip>
He says the administration:

* Tried to water down the Clean Air Act and has failed to require power plants to update facilities to improve air pollution plaguing Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, Grand Canyon and other national parks.

* Vowed to replace thousands of veteran park employees with workers from private companies.

* Ignored scientific research and public comment condemning snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and tossed out a plan that would have banned them from the parks.

* Successfully campaigned for the removal of Yellowstone from a U.N. list of imperiled ``World Heritage'' sites - after first removing details of the scientific evidence for environmental threats to the park.

* Failed to defend a highly touted and scientifically based plan to limit cars and overnight visitors in Yosemite.
<snip>

EDIT: We had better all make QUICK trips to the national parks/forests so we can remember what they WERE like :(

[Buns_of_Fire]

1. The Master Plan revealed

Mainella acknowledges that having too few park employees is a problem but says that on her watch, volunteerism has become a higher priority. As director of the Division of Recreation and Parks of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, she increased volunteerism in parks and is doing that now in the national parks, she says.

"Part of the reason I was selected by the president was that we in Florida knew we couldn't do it alone. We needed to be able to work with friends groups, to work with partners," she says, referring to such successes as the Friends of Honeymoon Island in Dunedin.

"Here in the national parks, we have 125,000 volunteers who donate $140 million of time if we'd have to pay them," Mainella said. "They are a great asset."

You see, it works this way: When you don't have a job, you'll have plenty of time to volunteer -- you won't have anything else to do! And, as an added benefit, there are lots of healthful nuts and berries in the woods! So Bunnypants has taken care of three problems at the same time! (How could we ever have doubted him?) </sarcasm>

[NJCher]

2. like his daddy, he's short on that vision thing....

``The Bush administration has no view of the future, no understanding of stewardship for future generations,'' says Finley, now president of the Turner Foundation in Atlanta, which awards environmental grants.

Above was said by a former park ranger.

What most people don't get is that if you look at bushco as just plain and simple thieves, it solves all the problems. This park ranger would then understand they, as a Nobel prizewinner said, are not a government but more like "looters."



Cher

[benfranklin1776]

4. Precisely

They look at national treasures like the park system and historical sites as nothing but sources of plunder for their fellow corporate thieves. The story of Bushco's pillage of these valuable national resources should be told through the personal experiences of these park workers over and over and over at every possible public opportunity between now and the 2004 election.

[teryang]

3. Honeymoon Island

...is a great place. Unlike most of Floridas park system it isn't completely overun with tourists. Therefore when you visit, the private contractors aren't there with their food concessions, rental concessions, chain saws, construction sites, noisy boat rides, trash, and so forth. Honeymoon island is a spartan state park which retains something of its original beauty. It doesn't generate enough traffic for the carnival like concessions associated with the Bush private contractors. This is because there are plenty of honky tonk style beaches overrun by tourists nearby in Clearwater and St. Petersburg which can offer better tourist services.

[buddhamama]

5. reminds of a bumpersticker i saw once

"Daddy, tell me again what forests were like"

[screembloodymurder]

6. Just got back from Glacier, Yellowstone, Tetons

lack of money was clearly affecting programs and services. I felt the parks were being intentionally neglected to promote privatization.

[pfitz59]

7. The BFEE cannot stand concept of PUBLIC property!

All must be privatized so the Aristocracy will have more riches to plunder! The COMMONS must be destroyed. (Read abut the roots of the Irish potato famine to understand the mind-set!)