Friend of Environmentalists : New Parks Chief--a Rare Breed for Reagan’s Team

In his office here, William Penn Mott has cleared away a large wall next to his desk. In that space the new director of the National Park Service plans to hang a photograph by Ansel Adams, a huge landscape of the Big Sur coast that was a personal gift to Mott from the artist’s widow.

Park Service lawyers have expressed some reservations. If the photograph is hung in a federal office, it just may become the property of the federal government. But wherever the photograph ends up, its presentation to the new parks director is symbolic of the contrast between Mott and most other environmental officials appointed by the Reagan Administration.

Mott, a 75-year-old Californian, was a longtime friend of Adams and his colleague in promoting new wilderness parks in the West. It is with some irony, then, that Mott has come to work for an Administration with which Adams had carried on a public war over environmental policy. But for Mott, this kind of irony is not new.

In 1967, Mott was named chief of California’s parks by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan just about the time the new governor was issuing his famous assessment about redwoods: Seen one, seen them all. Seven years later, when Mott left his post, the size of the state parks system had doubled.

So when Mott arrived in Washington early last month, he brought with him the enthusiastic support of virtually every national environmental organization. At his confirmation hearings in May, representatives of the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society and the Wilderness Society lined up to applaud Mott.

“He exudes leadership,” said Clay Peters, a staff member of the Wilderness Society. “We think he is the man to lift the Park Service out of a terrible morale problem. After the years of (former Interior Secretary) James Watt and his cohorts, the service is turned off and scared.”

Mott, capitalizing on the support, has lost little time in proposing initiatives that could produce significant changes in many of the country’s 334 national parks, monuments, seashores and historical sites. Among his major proposals are these:

- Renewal of the park acquisition program that was scuttled by Watt. Mott says he would like to see a new park in the Florida Keys and another, perhaps in Oklahoma, to preserve a portion of the vast prairie that once covered mid-America. Mott also supports the establishment of a national parkway along the Big Sur coast similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.

Limit on Visitors

- Limitation of visitors to portions of some of the most popular national parks, such as Yosemite. Mott says that overcrowding has degraded what he describes as the “quality experience” of the parks. He has proposed studies to determine the carrying capacity of the most popular sites. Other candidates for limitation are parts of Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Mt. Rushmore and the Grand Canyon. In California, Mott says quotas may be placed on visits by state residents to allow room for out-of-state tourists.

- A management trade between California state parks in the redwoods and federal parks in the Santa Monica Mountains. At present, Mott says, there is a confusing mixture of state and federal properties in both areas. Under his plan, the redwood properties would be managed entirely by the Park Service in an enlarged national park, and the Santa Monicas would come under complete control of the state. Such a plan would require the abolishment of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and its replacement with a state park.

- An increase in visitor fees at most national parks. At present most of the large parks charge $2 to $3 per car for a one-day pass. Mott says that these fees are “unreasonably low.” He would increase the fees to $5 to $8 per car with the proviso that the funds be used for park maintenance.

In his office at the Interior Department here, Mott acknowledged that most if not all of these plans promise to incite controversy. His success will depend, he says, on his ability to carry out what he describes as a “marketing plan.”

‘A Sympathetic Ear’

“We’re going to use all the techniques that business uses to market their products,” he said. “Marketing is not a dirty word. And if we do it right, I believe we will find a sympathetic ear.”

Mott recalls that he faced the same sort of problem when he headed the California park system. To raise revenues the parks began charging 50 cents a night for dogs, something that had never been done before.

“I was told people would scream for my head if we tried this,” Mott said, smiling. “But we educated visitors about the extra costs of having dogs in the parks, and there was hardly a peep of resistance.”

The task of persuading Congress--and the Reagan Administration--to cough up the money for new parks in the midst of a budget crisis may be a more formidable task, however. In 1980, Interior Secretary Watt froze the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is designed to provide money for new parks. And little money has been available since.

No Direct Acquisition

But Mott believes that much of the land in the new parks could be dedicated to public use without outright acquisition. For the grasslands park, which has come to be known internally as the Tallgrass Prairie National Park, much of the land could remain in private hands and be operated as ranches, Mott said.

“There are people who are good stewards of the land, who don’t want it subdivided,” Mott said. “We would simply acquire a protective covenant to guarantee it remains open space, and the families would be allowed to operate their ranches as they are now.”

Mott says that similar techniques could be used for another favorite project: the preservation of an entire wilderness river from its beginning to its end. Although portions of some rivers have been set aside, no American river has been preserved in its entirety. Mott said that one possible candidate for such status is the Yellowstone River, which flows for about 500 miles from its headwaters in Yellowstone National Park to its confluence with the Missouri River in North Dakota.

Such parks will serve as pressure valves for a culture that is increasingly urban and bothered by stress, Mott argues. Already, he says, the major parks suffer from overcrowding as more and more people seek the solace of wilderness. This year six parks, including Yosemite and Yellowstone, expect to see more than 2 million visitors each.

‘Human Carrying’ Capacity

Because of the overcrowding, Mott says he will sponsor studies of the most popular areas within the major parks to determine the “human carrying” capacity. Once that information is in hand, he will move to limit visitors to such sites as Yosemite Valley, the Old Faithful region of Yellowstone and the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

Already this year, the superintendent at Yosemite has threatened to shut the gates into the valley when the number of cars equals the number of parking spaces. No such closing has yet been necessary, but park officials say that the limits may be reached sometime this summer.

California poses a special problem for Mott. In this state the resident population alone is capable of overwhelming the capacity of a place like Yosemite, and Mott says he is considering a plan to place quotas on park visits by residents.

“Is it fair to the rest of the people in the United States when they are deprived of a quality experience at Yosemite because the park is used up by California people?” he asks.

“We might have to say that 75% of the visitors can come from the state and the rest are reserved for all other states. I’m not sure about the exact figures, but something like that.”

Protests Possible

Environmentalists generally applaud the intent of such regulations but say that several of the plans, especially the quota system, could produce a frenzy of protests.

“I would think the quota system needs a careful assessment,” said Deborah Sease, a national parks specialist for the Sierra Club. “There may be some creative ways to do the same thing without generating controversy.”

The proposal to consolidate managements of parks in the Santa Monica Mountains and the redwoods also promises to generate a lively debate. Mott argues that the trade makes good sense because there currently is a Redwoods National Park and several state parks containing redwoods. In the south, there is the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and several state parks in the same area.

Under Mott’s plan, the state would sign over management rights for the redwoods to the federal government, and the whole assembly would be operated as an expanded national park. In the south the opposite would happen, with the state gaining control.

Loss of Recognition

But the end result of this would mean that the Santa Monicas would lose their designation as a region worthy of national recognition. The establishment of the national recreation area in the mountains followed a long struggle by Southern California conservationists. Its abolishment--whether or not the same area is replaced with a state preserve--would inevitably leave some embittered.

“If the feds get out of the Santa Monicas, they also get out of the acquisition business,” Sease said, “and there’s more land that needs to be acquired.”

Negotiating his way through such tricky propositions is a hallmark of Mott’s style. In California, as director of state parks, he maneuvered a parks expansion through an Administration and a Legislature that held little love for the notion of a larger park system.

“Mott gained the confidence of the governor and the Legislature by being very clever,” said Joseph Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency. “Everyone usually came out happy in a Mott deal.

“He would go before a Senate committee, and a senator would say, ‘I got this piece of land in my district that would make a good park.’ Mott would say, ‘Senator, it just happens we have a proposed park in your district too. The only way to go is to buy both.’

“Then the senator would say, ‘Sounds good to me.’ ”

Obstacles in New Job

Here in Washington, there will be obstacles to repeating his state success. Even Mott’s aides say that the Santa Monica-Redwood swap has little chance of materializing, because of opposition at many levels. As for the parks expansion, the Reagan Administration has yet to endorse the plan.

William P. Horn, former assistant to Alaska Rep. Donald Young, has been nominated by the Reagan Administration to the post of assistant secretary of Interior for fish, wildlife and parks. If confirmed, Horn will be Mott’s immediate boss at the Interior Department, and conservationists have expressed fears that he will show far less enthusiasm for a parks expansion than has Mott.

In addition, Mott, at 75, is a year older than the President. Some supporters of Mott have voiced fears privately that he may not be able to maintain the pace required to promote his reforms. But it is a fear that never seems to have occurred to Mott.

“In 20 years the national parks are going to look better and be healthier than they are now,” Mott said. “We are not satisfied with the way things are, and we’re going to work until they get better.”