Because They Just Care So MUCH: Shitstain Crew Working On Ways To Keep Parks Open If Shutdown Comes

[hatrack]

EDIT

With government funding set to expire at midnight Friday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was still working out details of a plan to permit the parks to function without rangers or other staff on site. With many parks in peak season, drawing thousands of visitors, the lack of finality was causing wide confusion across the park system. Officials from three sites said Thursday they were unsure how to proceed.

“We don’t have a plan yet,” said Abby Wines, spokeswoman for Death Valley National Park in California, which is seeing 80,000 visitors a month. “We just got a memo about this yesterday. Today’s the first day we’re seriously thinking about this.”

EDIT

This time, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney proposed keeping the parks open in the event of a budget impasse, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. That triggered discussions between top officials at the Interior Department and the Park Service and administration lawyers to determine whether and how to preserve public access to national parks.

In an interview, Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) described the effort as a calculated ploy to obscure the real impact of failing to reach a spending deal. “It’s purely motivated by politics,” Bennet said. “But no matter what they do, there will be no way to cover up the many catastrophic effects of a shutdown.”

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-officials-weigh-keeping-national-parks-open-even-if-government-shuts-down/2018/01/17/7837649e-fbd1-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html?utm_term=.3cfee4337b31

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Once you've outsourced the concessions, you have a responsibility to your corporate masters. nt

[hatrack]

2. True, musn't anger Xanterra!

[pscot]

3. We don't want to lose

those $80 admission fees.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. By yesterday afternoon, the first looters (people with metal detectors) were spotted at Gettysburg

By yesterday afternoon, the first looters (people with metal detectors) were spotted at @GettysburgNMP. Leaving parks open with no rangers means our nation's cultural heritage is being stolen from you

Link to tweet

[jeffreyi]

6. Just saw this.

Looters notifying online that the coast is clear for raping and pillaging in Gettysburg and everywhere else, yippee. I am all for stopping them whatever it takes, myself. JFC, this has happened fast.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Joshua Tree National Park left wide open and abandoned during government shutdown

Ah yes, because @boyscouts has such a great reputation for actinf appropriately in parks with their "survival skills"

Link to tweet

Joshua Tree National Park left wide open and abandoned - by order of the DOI - during government shutdown

January 20, 2018

By Steve Brown

In our story last night on the shutdown of the federal government and its impact on our national parks, I noted parks had been silent on the topic. No mentions on social media, no press releases, no guidance of any sort to the public. Now, it seems that silence may have been mandated by the Department of the Interior.

It appears other things, things that could lead to irreversible damage to our national parks, may also have been mandated by DOI. While the DOI's contingency plan for government closure noted that parks "may still be accessible to visitors," though staffing the parks does not appear to be an option for NPS management. The DOI contingency plan stated:

While parks may still be accessible to visitors, parks may not use the presence of visitors in the park to justify higher staffing numbers than approved during previous shutdowns.

In parks such as Joshua Tree, the gates were closed and locked during the previous government shutdown, which meant no visitors were allowed into the main routes throughout the park. But in the current shutdown, while the visitor centers were closed, the gates were left wide open, along with the Joshua Tree entrance bathrooms, with no NPS staff on hand. A steady stream of traffic was entering the park - a normally busy weekend with a difference: no one was paying entrance fees, and the only greeting visitors received was a one page notice taped to the ticket booth.
....

We'll be monitoring the situation inside the park during the government shutdown, and we welcome readers to send us comments and photos of their experiences as well. Please send comments and photos HERE ([e-mail]).

We have also reached out to NPS employees for their comments and any information they may have regarding the shutdown and how it was handled. They may also reach us HERE ([e-mail]).

In the meantime, we strongly encourage all visitors to our national parks to care for them as if they were your own precious property, because they are.

what's that supposed to mean?

Link to tweet

If you read the article, you'll see a quote from an 18 year old boy scout saying they're better off without rangers because he has "survival skills". Being an 18-35 year old male in a national park is one of the most dangerous things you can do - they are most likely to die

Link to tweet