Park Agencies Consider Merging Some Services : Recreation: An interagency team will study ideas such as sharing staff and consolidating garbage pickup in a bid to cut state and federal costs.

The National Park Service and California Department of Parks and Recreation are seeking ways to cut costs by consolidating operations of state and federal parks with common boundaries in the Santa Monica Mountains and two other sites in California, officials with the agencies have announced.

An interagency study team will consider a variety of cost-saving ideas, such as consolidating garbage collection and sharing staff and equipment used in maintaining hiking trails that cross adjacent state and federal lands.

“In this day of fiscal limitations, we must all seek greater efficiency in our operations, and greater cooperation is one way of achieving it,” said Donald W. Murphy, director of the state parks department.

Officials said they will be trying to save money through better use of equipment, buildings and staff, rather than through reductions in park hours or visitor services.

“We . . . want to do more with what we’ve got,” said Noah Tilghman of the state parks department.

The study team of park managers from the two agencies will focus on three national and state park clusters that share boundaries: the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Topanga, Malibu Creek, Leo Carrillo and Point Mugu state parks in Los Angeles and Ventura counties; Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Angel Island State Park in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Redwood National Park and Jedediah Smith Redwoods, Del Norte Coast Redwoods and Prairie Creek Redwoods state parks in Del Norte and Humboldt counties.

The 10-member interagency team will tour the park sites during the next three weeks, and issue a draft report this fall, Tilghman said.

The public is invited to send written suggestions by Aug. 25 to the team in care of the National Park Service, 600 Harrison St., Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, or to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, Resource Management Division, Box 942896, Sacramento, Calif., 94296-0001.

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a mosaic of private and public land that stretches from Griffith Park in Los Angeles to Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County, includes extensive state and federal holdings.

The Park Service owns about 20,400 acres within the recreation area, and the state parks about 40,000 acres--most of that in Topanga, Malibu Creek and Point Mugu state parks. The National Recreation Area’s most important hiking and equestrian trail, the Backbone Trail, crosses both the state and federal lands.

In another announcement Thursday reflecting the park agencies’ budget strains, officials said trails across National Park Service land in the Santa Monicas will be closed during and immediately after rainy weather to avoid the cost of erosion repairs. Use of trails in wet weather can cause deep rutting and widening of trails, requiring expensive rehabilitation.

“The cost of maintaining park trails has become overwhelming,” said David E. Gackenbach, superintendent of the recreation area, adding that with the new policy, “the cost of repairing trails will be decreased.”

Asked how the Park Service can enforce the ban, spokeswoman Jean Bray said the agency is counting on voluntary cooperation from park users.

“We ask for their participation, or non-participation as the case may be, to try not to use the trails” in wet weather.