Price Tag on Serenity

What is the price of serenity and peace of mind? Of walking down a trail in one of America’s magnificent national parks, and leaving behind the stress and noise of everyday life? What is the value of watching a waterfall splash in the sunlight against granite rocks and hearing the song of the dashing waters? Of a loon calling in the wilderness?

What is the worth of sitting in the grass beside a mountain lake at dusk and hearing a trout jump? Or of hearing a rustling in the nearby brush, and wondering nervously what that was, when a big buck deer explodes into the open and sprints into the trees across the way?

Can there be a price on the excitement of a thunderstorm approaching over the ranges, or up a canyon, its thunder rattling mountain walls like booming timpani? Can anything be as silently eloquent as a sunset from the Grand Canyon’s rim? Van Goghs now go for millions. What price could one put on an uninterrupted Grand Canyon sunset --each day’s canvas unique from every other’s?

Today the price of serenity and peace of mind in our national parks is $3 million, the cost of studies that would lead to the appropriate control of sightseeing airplane and helicopter flights over the national parks. The bill sponsored by Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced) won final passage in the House Monday and now is before President Reagan for his signature. The measure would impose a ban on flights below the rim of the Grand Canyon and require aircraft to remain at least 2,000 feet above Yosemite. Both provisions are urgently needed.

But the Administration says that the cost is too high. So it has opposed the bill, and there is a chance that the President will veto it. Officials claim that they already have the authority to control flights, but the Interior Department has refused to exercise such control to protect Grand Canyon and other areas from noise pollution.

What is the value of serenity and peace of mind in our national parks? It is priceless.