Cost crunch will force national parks to slash services

[Malva Zebrina]

Cost crunch will force national parks to slash services





Wed Mar 17, 6:26 AM ET
By Kitty Bean Yancey, USA TODAY

Visitors to national parks this summer will find reduced ranger staff, services and visitor center hours, say a pair of new reports by two groups critical of the Bush administration's park policy.
Though the budget for park services has continued to rise, spending for homeland security and additional expenditures to cover natural disasters have pinched the National Park Service and forced cost-cutting.
"We're on the verge of crossing the line to where the public will notice" service cuts, Park Service spokesman David Barna says.
Among the trouble spots, according to the National Parks Conservancy Association:

• Maine's Acadia National Park is trimming about 20% of the park's summer staff.
• Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania must deny staff-led program requests from one of every four schools.
• Death Valley National Park in California has sporadic trash pickup because of staffing cuts.
Today, the Coalition of Concerned National Park Retirees will reveal what it calls previously undisclosed cuts that have resulted in the removal of lifeguards from beaches and trimmed visitor center hours. The non-partisan group of about 200 former park workers and executives has been critical of the Bush administration's parks policy.

Homeland security cuts into spending "big time," the Park Service's Barna says. "When it goes from code yellow to orange, we bring over 200 rangers East to help guard monuments. It costs about $1 million a month." Hurricanes and a heavy wildfire season drained 2003 budgets, too.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=4&u=/usatoday/20040317/ts_usatoday/costcrunchwillforcenationalparkstoslashservices




I use and thoroughly enjoy the National Parks a lot for hiking and camping or for plain nothing when I travel. They are for the most part, exceptionally beautiful and peaceful places, especially Acadia National Park here in Maine.

This past fall, I visited the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire and Maine to soak up the brilliant and magnificient color that floods this area in the fall. There are private corporations running the campgrounds now. I suspect this bleeding dry of Rangers and others that would keep our parks functioning is an attempt to move private companies into the parks.

I know it sound paranoid and maybe I should wear the tinfoil hat, but I would put nothing past the corporate megas to make a profit on anything at all, even if it be the people's natural parks. There are sooooo many people, families and even with their pets who enjoy these parks with complete joy.

The campground where I stayed glitzed up the information kiosks with bizarre red, white and blue posters--the services were not any better and the people that were "hired" were actually disgruntled and unhappy employees--I spoke to a couple who were involved who had been there in that campground for many many years.

[Joanne98]

1. you're not paranoid

That's exactly what's happening. The fundies are also involved in this somehow. They're on this campaign to put up biblical monuments and sell books saying the Grand Canyon is only 6000 years old. I'd like know more about the companies providing the services. They might be fundie companys.

[brook]

12. Check this out...

Christ coming to a park near you.Scroll down on right hand side.

I find this interesting. ARA is a major concessionaire. They started business *life* with a fleet of roach coaches in industrial areas and also distributed porno mags.

[frylock]

2. can't wait to go to sbc yahoo.com yosemite park..

I too fear it will happen soon enough.

[pfitz59]

3. National Parks will soon be on the auction block....

to pay off the deficit. Mark my words....

[Mandate My Ass]

4. I read an editorial in the Philly Inquirer

several months ago that scared me half to death. It floated a trial balloon along the lines of so what if the gov't sells our public lands to mega corporations. It would free up cash for other, more important programs and the only difference would be that the kiosks would have a corporate logo, no biggie. Talk about ignoring the elephant in the living room.

The Inquirer has been tilting way rightward since the second Clinton term. I got the feeling they wanted to appear to be postulating a hypothetical but they were actually revealing something already deep in the planning stages.

The minute they let the corporations in, those lands will be closed to the public and raped.

[BeFree]

5. Parks and Forests

There is a difference between National Parks and National Forests.

Parks are under Sec. Interior, and Forests are under Sec. of Agriculture.

Both agencies are underfunded and moving towards privatization. The National Parks are especially being targeted for this privatization because for the most part the employees do everything, while much of the National Forest lands are used for commerce already.

There is one issue concerning a National Park that everyone should take note of. The website: http://northshoreroad.info deals with this issue. That website is a National Park website detailing the possibility of building an expensive road through the Great Smokies National Park in North Carolina.

You can make comments regarding the alternatives at that website. For the preservation of the Park, it is hoped you will vote the alternative of paying the $52M to Swain County, and stopping the road from being built.

[Malva Zebrina]

8. Thank you for posting that information

I knew there was a difference between the two but did not realize it was under different government departments.

I have never been to the Great Smokies National Park and I may check that some day soon--but I am of the opinion that all the parks should be left exactly as they are. And, jobs should be given to Rangers rather than left to corporations who will do anything to give as cheap a service as they can get away with, or else, charge a little extra for services--and that will happen I am sure. We don't need no corporate meddling in our parks.

[rumguy]

6. Saddened....

My parents met in the Grand Tetons, where my grandfathers were summer Naturalist rangers...

I love the National Parks - if the corps. are allowed in I have no doubt they will ruin them...

Fuck this corporate sell-of of OUR lands...America's lands...

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[skippysmom]

9. This makes me so angry

Don't screw with the National Parks!

[tlcandie]

10. So, when this sell off starts .. provided * stays in another 4 years ...

how far will we all go to protect what is left of our national treasures?

Will it be the start of more than just protests?

[Rebellious Republican]

11. Fran Manilla, National Parks Director, used to work for Jeb!

Thats right she is another Jeb protege, she used to be the Florda Park Service Director. You can take my word on this, she was dispised by most of the feild staff in the FPS. She is arrogant, ass kissing, lock step, toadie of the Bush family. Learn the name FRAN MANILLA, she gutted the Florida Park Service, she was trying to privatize the whole thing. Except it had already been tried in Tennessee and failed miserably. Fortunately some legislaters (both Dems and Repubs) saw the light and kept her at bay.

Here is a good read, its a White Paper on the privatization of the Tennessee Parks.

No Walk in the Park
Dismantling the Tennessee
State Park System

This white paper is an account told by a score of current
and former employees within Tennessee State
Parks. No Walk in the Park is an attempt to tell the
public from the inside about the effects of closures,
cutbacks in operating hours, lay-offs and other changes
made in the Parks system during the past two years.
Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation
Commissioner Milton Hamilton’s plans to
reconfigure public parks are the main backdrop for
this white paper. In No Walk in the Park , employees
explain some of the motivations for this shift of mission
and burst the myths and “spin” Commissioner
Hamilton’s office has used in its campaign to shrink
and privatize a public park system.
No Walk in the Park does not represent the official
views of the Tennessee Department of Environment
and Conservation. Quite the contrary, this white paper
is meant to articulate a dissenting opinion from
the official company line — a dissenting opinion no
longer tolerated within the Department.
While some may dismiss these accounts as sour
grapes, this white paper articulates the insights of
seasoned professionals who have dedicated their careers
to Tennessee Parks and who value the state’s
unique natural, cultural and historic resources. They
are not short-term political appointees like Commissioner
Hamilton. Their views are a distillation of decades
of experience.
The contributors to this white paper hope to stimulate
a public discussion of the serious concerns about
abandoning protection of the state’s broad heritage
of cultural and natural resources in favor of operating
profit-centers at a few resort destinations. The
contributors also offer steps they believe need to be
taken to restore the Tennessee Parks system. PEER
would like to thank the contributors to this report,
including Ron Castle for his editorial assistance.
As with previous employee-authored PEER white papers,
the contributors remain anonymous in order to
avoid career repercussions and to allow the information
in this white paper to speak for itself. The authors
invite independent reviewers to examine the
public record and draw their own conclusions.
PEER is proud to assist conscientious public servants
who have dedicated their careers to the protection
of natural resources and the faithful execution of environmental
laws.
Jeff Ruch
PEER Executive Director
http://www.tnpeer.org/State_Park/no_walk_in_park.pdf