"As this country begins to think about the centennial of the National Park Service [in 2016], it is appropriate that we have a serious conversation about parks and their value to our society, and the role we want parks and the National Park Service to play in the future," said Dwight T. Pitcaithley, former Chief Historian, NPS, and present History Professor, New Mexico State University, in his essay "On the Brink of Greatness: National Parks and the Next Century," NPS
Centennial Essay Series.
The Future of America's Parks
In The Future of America's
Parks: A Report to the President of the United States, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne set strategic goals for the NPS under five overarching themes:
- Under the theme of stewardship, he said that the NPS will rehabilitate
high-priority historic buildings; restore native habitats; improve high priority
assets; and complete cultural resource inventories.
- Under environmental leadership, the NPS will follow and demonstrate
exemplary environmental practices; increase its use of alternative energy and
fuels; reduce the air and water impacts of park operations; and serve as a model
for energy efficiency.
- Under recreational experience, the NPS will seek to double contributions
of time by park volunteers; increase visitor numbers at the lesser known parks;
and increase attendance at ranger-facilitated programs.
- Under education, the NPS will increase visitors' understanding
and appreciation of the parks; enlist two million more children in the Junior
Ranger program; and enhance NPS Internet sites to attract more visitors, especially
young people.
- Under professional excellence, the NPS will utilize improved
communications and marketing to increase public understanding of the agency's
role; establish a structured curriculum for professional development; improve
park safety for visitors and staff; seek a nationally representative diversity
in workforce recruitment programs; and attain the highest level of employee satisfaction
of all the federal agencies.
The Challenge
Even armed with a new set of strategic goals - if they become adopted by the White House and the congress - the NPS will still face formidable challenges in complying with its fundamental charter, especially given the sheer scope of its responsibilities, the past underfunding by several administrations and the congress, and the chronic political wrangling in Washington.
Under the 1916 legislation that created the NPS, the agency came into being "to conserve the scenery and the wild life [in our national parks] and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." As it has evolved through the succeeding century, the NPS has been entrusted with the care of many of our most cherished natural and historic assets.
The agency, with some 20,000 employees, now operates a system that covers some 84 million acres and comprises nearly 400 units, including parks, monuments, trails, historic sites, recreation areas, preserves and memorials. The NPS oversees - according to the American Society of Civil Engineers' Infrastructure Report Card Internet site - an infrastructure that includes some 18,000 permanent structures, 12,000 miles of roads, 1800 bridges and tunnels, some 400 dams, more than 4000 housing units, more than 1500 water and wastewater systems and some 200 solid waste operations. Further, according to Pitcaithley, it maintains 1000 campgrounds, monitors 67,000 archaeological sites, and curates 115 million prehistoric and historic objects. The agency hosts nearly 300 million visitors from throughout the world every year.
In our desert Southwest, from western Texas to southern California, the NPS operates nearly 80 units, including 19 national parks, 36 monuments, and various trails, historical sites, recreation areas, preserves and memorials. These include some of our nation's most wondrous treasures, for instance, western Texas' Guadalupe and Big Bend Mountain National Parks; New Mexico's Chaco Canyon National Monument; Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park; Utah's Canyonlands, Arches, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks; Nevada's and southern California's Death Valley National Park; and Arizona's incomparable Grand Canyon National Park.
In spite of the breadth and importance of its role in our national life, the NPS has had to struggle with a miserly budget for decades. In his essay, Pitcaithley said that "After 1966, funding for the National Park Service never kept pace with the growing needs of the agency." In fact, in many years, the NPS's funding failed to even keep pace with inflation. "In 2004," said The Wilderness Society's FACTS Internet site, "the backlog of national park maintenance and construction needs was estimated to be somewhere between $4.1 and $6.8 billion." By 2007, said Pitcaithley, the NPS estimated that the backlog had grown to $8.0 billion.
As a result of inadequate funding, the agency has faced an average annual budget shortfall of 32 percent in the parks across the nation, including those of our desert Southwest. It teeters on the precipice of crisis.
Following a survey and analysis that encompassed several dozen NPS sites - which included the Southwest's Big Bend, Rocky Mountain, Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands National Parks as well as the Glen Canyon and Lake Mead National Recreation Areas - the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees produced a report (see the organization's Internet site) with several sobering conclusions. In 2006, visitors, said the report, would find "widespread evidence of major problems that will be evident this [2006] summer - including decreased safety for visitors, longer emergency response times, endangerment of protected resources, and dirtier and less well-maintained parks - and that the problems will only grow worse in the coming years."
"Effectively, there is no meaningful preventative maintenance program today in the NPS because very few parks now have the resources to carry out such a program..." said Bill Supernaugh, the former Superintendent of Badlands National Park. "Reduced seasonal employee hiring contributes directly to increased maintenance backlogs, increased resource crimes, and the increased prevalence of the already shameful number of shabby and ill-kept national park sites and facilities."
Further, said the report:
- Visitors to parks this summer [2006] would see evidence of deteriorating
park operations resulting from reduced preventative maintenance, in terms of
scheduled custodial checks, roadside litter pickup, and grounds and buildings
maintenance.
- Widespread cuts are putting national parks in an almost purely 'reactive'
posture, falling far short of the law and Congressional intent to protect the
resources for future generations.
- The national park maintenance backlog has increased - rather than being
reduced, as promised.
- National park budget shifts are taking place largely at the expense of
leaving key staff positions unfilled.
"Our intention here is not to be alarmist, but to ensure that American citizens and lawmakers know the facts," said Bill Wade, former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park. "Forget about cutting the flesh or any 'fat,' we are now cutting deeply into the sinews and bones of our national parks. Congressional budget increases of recent years have been welcome, but these modest hikes have only succeeded in bringing some parks out of the depths of the financial abyss ... and back to its brink. The sad fact is that these budget add-ons are the proverbial drop in the bucket of at least $600 million in operations funding deficits and an enormous maintenance backlog of up to $7 billion."
In addition to inadequate funding, the NPS has long operated in the eye of a perfect storm of political wills. At one end of the political spectrum, the agency must cope with demands to preserve and protect the pristine grandeur of nature and our history-a position consistent with the original legislative charter. At the other end, it feels intense pressures to open the parklands to commercial development and recreational interests-a notion suggestive of natural theme parks.
In one of the latest chapters of political battling - covered by John. G. Mitchell in National
Geographic, October, 2006 - a National Park System Advisory Board, appointed by Gale Norton, Secretary of the Department of Interior, 2001 through 2006, concluded in its report Rethinking
the National Parks for the 21st Century observed that the NPS should: "encourage public support of resource protection at a higher level of understanding. In giving priority to visitor services, the Park Service has paid less attention to the resources it is obliged to protect for future generations."
While most NPS professionals applauded the report, neither Norton nor Fran Mainella, Director, National Park Service, 2000 through 2006, did. The report notwithstanding, the NPS would soon see the possibility of drastic alterations to its basic policy document in a draft revision written by the DOI Deputy Assistant Secretary Paul Hoffman, who proposed throwing open national parks to snowmobiles, personal watercraft and tourist flights. According to Mitchell, Bill Wade, a retired park superintendent and the chairman of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, "called the Hoffman document an 'astonishing attempt to hijack' the nation's parks..." Under withering criticism, Hoffman's proposals died on the vine.
The NPS may have been surprised in early 2006, when Congressman Richard Pombo, 11th District of California, proposed selling off 15 national park areas for commercial and energy development. Under heavy criticism, Pombo's proposals also died.
With morale fading, many senior staffers have retired since 2001. "We're losing some of our best people," one ranger told Mitchell. "Where is it going to end?"
The Centennial Initiative
Hopefully, the National Park Service will see its trials reversed by the Centennial Initiative.
Recognizing the problems, President George W. Bush said, "A vital goal for this country would be to prepare the parks, to guard the parks, to conserve the parks and to make the parks relevant to the American people in honor of the 100th anniversary."
"The 21st-century National Park Service will be energized to preserve parks and welcome visitors," said Kempthorne in the report to the president. "Stewardship and science will guide decisions."
"...I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with 300 million of my fellow citizens, united in the common cause of our nation parks," said Mary A. Bomar, the present Director of the NPS. "The National Park Service will care for the parks and foster a new generation of stewards to care for the riches we enjoy as Americans."
For fiscal year 2008, the NPS could have the highest level of funding ($2.4 billion) in its history, provided that President Bush's proposed budget doesn't stall out in the congress. Further, it may benefit from President Bush's centennial commitment to provide another $100 million for each of the next 10 years for increased staff, accelerated maintenance and expanded children's programs. The agency could benefit still more from the president's centennial challenge, which would provide yet another $100 million of mandatory annual federal funding to match as much as $100 million in private annual donations through 2016.
Already, said Bomar, "Superintendents are working with park friends, advocacy groups, and community leaders to prepare the vision and outline specific actions for their own parks. They will also identify the specific projects and programs to be proposed for public/private funding between now and 2016."
Centennial Proposals
According to a news release, "Centennial Initiative," issued by the NPS on August 23, 2007, the agency has identified more than 200 specific proposals that may be "undertaken in the national parks as part of the National Park Centennial Initiative." Secretary Kempthorne said, "Today we are ready to breathe life into vision and ideas." Director Bomar said, "These proposals, and the ones to follow over the next 9 years, represent the cornerstones of a new century for the National Park Service and new era of partnership with the American people."
Consistent with the framework of the Centennial Initiatives strategic goals, NPS field staffs have proposed such projects as intensified monitoring of parklands' environmental health, expanded rehabilitation and protection of habitats, expanded inventorying and tracking of biological species, increased protection of endangered species, restoration and rehabilitation of cultural resources, increased use of more environmentally friendly operating and power generation equipment, intensified marketing campaigns for NPS sites, construction of new visitor centers, revitalization of trails and pathways, increased education programs for children, provision of new and technologically advanced exhibits and learning tools, and upgraded facilities and training for NPS management personnel. The NPS hopes to convey to America a more profound appreciation for the natural, cultural and recreational treasures of our nation.
In our desert Southwest, the NPS initiative should lead specifically to things such as enhanced visitor experiences in natural environments and cultural settings, minimized environmental impacts of NPS operations, expansion and improved maintenance of facilities and trails, new opportunities for visitor learning and scholarly research, and more opportunities and training for NPS staff. If the proposals materialize for the desert Southwest, the NPS will offer their visitors a new and expanded experience in some of the most beguiling places on the planet earth.
New Hope?
While the NPS Centennial Initiative has raised hopes, it has also left concerns.
Even if the White House and the congress actually appropriate $2.5 billion to $3.0 billion annually, including the base budget, the centennial commitment and the centennial challenge, through 2016, the NPS may still face a shortfall in carrying out its normal operating obligations, fulfilling its ambitious centennial goals, and paring its $7.0 billion to $8.0 billion maintenance backlog. Indeed, said the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in its Internet site in October of 2007, "There is no connection between the vast majority of the Centennial projects and the backlogged needs that the NPS identified." Moreover, the NPS may be mindful that in 2001, President Bush proposed appropriating funds necessary to eliminate the park system's maintenance backlog within five years (White House Press Release, May 30, 2001), a hope eventually quashed largely by the events of September 11 of that same year.
While funding remains questionable, the NPS organizational position, in the Department of Interior, raises an issue of fundamentally incompatible political agendas, as Pitcaithley points out. On one hand, the NPS aspires to conscientious stewardship and environmental leadership while on the other hand, its parent organization holds responsibility, for example, for surface mining and mineral management.
In an article that Kurt Repanshek wrote for the National Parks Traveler Internet site, he said that Bill Wade, Coalition of National Park Service Retirees had commented that "...the devil is going to be in the details and implementation..." of the Centennial Initiative. Kristen Brengel, The Wilderness Society, said that "...the decisions that [the DOI is] making outside the [Centennial Initiative Report] don't reflect those principles..." Further, Brengel expressed doubt about how to reconcile the new centennial management policies and "...a proposal to allow over 700 snowmobiles in Yellowstone..."
By contrast, a more optimistic Tom Kiernan, National Parks Conservation Association, told Repanshek that the initiative can be regarded as "a thoughtful vision for the Nation Park System that builds on several important prior efforts by champions of the system." Further, he said, the initiative "...presents an opportunity for Congress to help further frame and define a compelling vision and goals for the second century of the National Park System."
As Pitcaithley observed, "The centennial will either begin a renaissance for this most American of American institutions or it will pass, as so many centennials pass, with much fanfare and celebration signifying nothing..."
Let us hope for the renaissance.
