‘Squandered Opportunity’

The Times editorial “Squandered Opportunity” (March 15) was right on target. We wish it was otherwise. However, the sad, irrefutable facts are that the Reagan Administration has run roughshod over the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The Administration has consistently sought to eliminate the fund’s grants program for state and local parks and recreation areas. Fortunately, Congress has kept the program afloat with modest appropriations ($20 million for fiscal 1988, down from a high of $379 million in fiscal 1979).

Paradoxically, the Land and Water Conservation Fund’s state grants program--prior to 1981--was the very model of a state-federal partnership success story. The program provides federal matching grants to states for acquisition and development of public outdoor recreation areas and facilities. Over the course of the program’s 20-plus years, more than 34,000 projects have been completed, including Stelzer Park in San Diego County, where LWCF monies provided $243,000 for development of picnic areas, nature and recreational trails and camping facilities--all designed to support disabled visitors; Indian Bend Wash, near Scottsdale, Ariz., an eroded 7.5-mile channel that was transformed into a greenbelt complete with parks, golf courses and lakes for recreational enjoyment; and the Willamette Greenway in Oregon, where $7.5 million in matching grants have aided the protection of the 255-mile greenway.

The Reagan Administration’s repeated attempts to eliminate the LWCF’s state grants program come at a time when the need for funding for state and local projects has reached an unprecedented level. A 1987 national poll of the states by the National Assn. of State Outdoor Recreation Liaison Officers found that projected Land and Water Conservation Fund needs for 1989 exceeded $600 million and are expected to reach $675 million for 1990.

In the view of the National Recreation and Park Assn., it is both economic and moral folly to not reinvest revenues from a depleting natural resource--in this case, Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leases--for the acquisition and development of close-to-home parks and recreation lands and facilities. Hence, we must echo the sentiment of The Times: “The nation cannot stand another year of squandered opportunities and shameful neglect of a program launched with such promise in 1964 and crippled since 1981.”

ED PRATT

Communications Specialist

Natl. Recreation and Park Assn.

Alexandria, Va.