National Parks Hypocrisy

When Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton and her assistants fanned out to celebrate Earth Day on April 22, the headline on the press release proclaimed in part, “Cherishing our National Parks.” Norton visited Yosemite National Park, declaring in effect that the Bush administration was emulating Teddy Roosevelt in caring for the nation’s natural treasures. In fact, this administration is the worst in decades in protecting and maintaining the park system.

The National Parks Conservation Assn. estimates that the annual $1.6-billion National Park Service budget for operations and maintenance is $600 million short of what’s needed. The administration has acknowledged advising regional park directors to quietly cut services to save money. Suggested “service level adjustments” included closing visitor centers on federal holidays, cutting back ranger talks and tours and closing entire parks for some days of the week. David Barna, a Park Service spokesman, suggested that the reductions be spread out as much as possible “so that it won’t cause public or political controversy.”

Politicians have for years used glowing terms such as “the nation’s crown jewels” to speak of the parks while pinching the Park Service budget, so the Bush administration is not alone in deserving blame. Congress is at fault as well.

Norton said President Bush was fulfilling his promise to restore the parks, pumping $3.9 billion into water and sewage facilities, visitor centers and roads. But Interior officials acknowledged that only $300 million of that was above what was already budgeted by the Clinton administration. A backlog of billions of dollars in deferred maintenance and construction needs has left the parks’ infrastructure moldering -- not to mention the failure to protect the resources themselves.

Much of what has been spent in Yosemite, something that Norton boasted about, was a special appropriation from Congress to restore parts of Yosemite Valley devastated in a 1997 flood.

The Park Service staff, already stretched thin, has been stressed further by homeland security demands, including stepped-up protection of the Statute of Liberty, the Washington Monument and other icons during periods of high alert. Morale has plummeted.

In Yosemite, Norton visited the restoration of the popular trail to Lower Yosemite Falls and told of $200 million put into California parks in the last three years. The irony is that $11 million, a major portion of the funding of the Yosemite Falls project, was raised by the Yosemite Fund, a private, nonprofit support organization for the park. The White House has little right to crow about its support for Yosemite or any of the other national parks.