270 Senior NPS Staffers - Bush "In Denial" On National Park Problems

[hatrack]

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"A group of 270 former park service directors, superintendents and other senior officers, citing a "crisis at America's national parks," this month said Bush administration officials in charge of the parks are in "a state of denial about the grave problems" at the parks.

"There's no doubt that the parks are hurting more now than any time most of us can remember," said Bill Wade, a former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park and spokesman for the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees. The base operations budget for the parks increased by 0.6 percent this year (to $988.2 million), the smallest boost in a least a decade and not enough to cover mandated cost increases. Most individual parks - 297 of them - actually saw cuts in their operations budgets this year.

At the Smoky Mountains, the park's basic operating budget was cut from $15.6 million in 2003 to $15.3 million this year, even as costs rose for such things as a required $3 million radio system and a mandated 4.1 percent pay hike for employees. The park has left 19 jobs vacant - 11 percent of its 175 non-law-enforcement positions.

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The Smokies face a daunting array of challenges. Air pollution, primarily from coal-fired power plants, has cut visibility at its scenic overlooks from 100 miles to 25; an exotic insect, the woolly adelgid, is ravaging the hemlock trees that shade mountain streams and protect brook trout, and traffic jams are overwhelming Cade's Cove. "The health of the park is the most important issue to understand and may be the hardest," said Ditmanson.

Many national parks, including Great Smoky National Park is increasingly turning to private donors. This year, volunteers provided $4.2 million in cash and manpower, 22 percent of the park's basic support. A decade ago, volunteers provided just one percent. The Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a nonprofit group created 11 years ago, this year provided money for an ambulance and other vehicles, restoration of log cabins and for 95 percent of the 135 seasonal employees to cope with the surge of summer visitors. It's also paying $290,000 for a lab program to produce predator beetles to eat the harmful woolly adelgids."

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http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/nation/9301041.htm

[Gman]

1. They are not in denial

they just don't care. Every dollar not going to the park system is eligible for the pockets of Halliburton et al.

[NNadir]

5. Bingo.

[Fish08]

7. These cutbacks are required

to make up for the money not coming in from the rich in taxes. The cut back in taxes had to show up somewhere and with Bush & co that place is the Environment (among other things). Sickening.

[zbdent]

2. Probably the plan of the Bush administration

National Park Service goes slowly bankrupt, having to close many parks (which happen to co-incide with national forests).

Then the parks have to sell off the land. Not surprisingly, much is bought up by the forestry industry.

What's not bought up by them is sold to private "residents", who pledge to move in and live there, keeping up the "natural beauty of the land". Within 5 years, each and every parcel is sold off to a major profit, just one dollar under the (prevailing) capital gains taxable limit.

[luaneryder]

3. What is happening to the Smokies is a tragedy

No one gets out to walk any more and the trails of dead foliage and trees along the byways thruout the park is gut wrenching. A blue pall hangs over the peaks all the time. I haven't been there in about eight years because it is just too sad to witness the death of a national treasure. And as long as Repubs are in control we can expect more of the same.

[ramapo]

4. Not just Repubs to blame

That just makes it more disturbing

[LastDemocratInSC]

6. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has defined my life ...

Some of my earliest memories are of being in those beautiful mountains with my parents and siblings. In later years I spent my days hiking the crestline in all the seasons - I have been rained on, sleeted on, hailed on, and have post-holed along in snow up to my waist.

I eventually met the lady I married by overhearing a casual conversation at work about hiking in the Smokies. I invited her to lunch - we started hiking together on the weekends and are now proud grandparents of two young boys that we carry in child-backpacks in those high places along the Tennessee / North Carolina state line whenever we can. I literally owe life as I know it to the high and windy peaks of the Smokies.

In all my years I have never seen the Park in worse shape. The budget cuts have been awful and I grieve for the losses we will face in the future. I hope that my grandsons will be able, some day, to repeat the words I have spoken here because if they can, the Park will have survived its current torment - but I am afraid that they won't be able to do so.

We all have lots of work to do.

[GreenGreenLimaBean]

8. admission prices are too low

A single car is charged $20 to enter a park for an entire week. Compare that to the price people to enter Disney World and I think the price should be raised. I'm also proposing the income from these fees stays in the parks system and not skirted off to Halliburton.