Deferred Repairs Take Toll on Parks

The hospital where American troops recuperated after the Spanish-American War in 1898 is now inhabited by raccoons that enter through broken windows.

The handsome wooden buildings that housed thousands of World War I doughboys need new roofs. And the vast mess hall where GIs bound for the Pacific theater in World War II ate their meals is so dilapidated that it may not be worth saving.

Drenched in history, this speck of land in San Francisco Bay, now a state park, offers a window on California’s role in world events.

Its cannon batteries guarded the state’s gold fields during the Spanish-American War, and Nike missile sites stood guard during the Cold War.

Generations of soldiers passed through its barracks and hospitals on the way to and from far-flung battlefields.

It was the first stop for hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants entering the United States early in the last century.

All of Angel Island State Park is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Yet the public is barred from entering most of the park’s 120 buildings because of collapsed roofs, buckling walls, suspect foundations and other hazards.

Many of the buildings were in substandard condition when the state acquired them from the U.S. Army 40 years ago.

Still, the deteriorating conditions here are increasingly characteristic of California’s park system, the nation’s largest, which now faces the deferring of $600 million in restoration and maintenance costs, with little prospect of relief from a state government staggering under a $38-billion budget gap.

Now, at the start of the summer tourist season, park officials are confronting more than 5,000 repair projects -- among them, shoring up of rickety lifeguard towers at Malibu State Beach, which will cost $150,000; trail repairs that will cost $250,000 at Will Rogers State Historic Park in Los Angeles; restoration of a rotting historic bridge for $450,000 at Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains; and rehabilitation of a sewer system for $200,000 at La Purisima Mission State Historic Park near Lompoc.

Nature, too, can be a costly asset if neglected. The 18 state parks in Los Angeles County are seeking $350,000 for pest management, much of it to get rid of squirrels that can damage buildings. At Anza Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego and Riverside counties, $3.8 million is needed to eradicate tamarisk trees, an invasive plant that chokes out native plants.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation is asking for an operating budget of $275 million, but even if the request is honored, the money won’t make a dent in the repair backlog.

Three years ago, Gov. Gray Davis earmarked $157 million for deferred maintenance -- an unprecedented gesture, said the acting state parks director, Ruth Coleman -- but even that wasn’t enough. Coleman said the money has already been spent on 1,300 repair projects.

“What you are seeing is the effect of decades of neglect,” she said.

Nor is it just buildings that are in jeopardy. Restoration of an antique grandfather clock at Governor’s Mansion Historic Park in Sacramento will cost $10,000. Luckily, most visitors don’t seem to notice.

“We have all these massive projects, and ultimately, people notice the cleanliness of the grounds and how well they are maintained,” said Ron Schafer, superintendent for state parks in the Los Angeles area. “Graffiti removal is important. Weeds need to be kept down. Basically, people want the toilets to flush.”

Statewide, 85 million people visit the parks every year. Visitation has increased by 30% over the last three years.

Visitors to the state’s 274 parks contribute $2.6 billion to local economies, according to a recent study by the parks department.

Last year, about 200,000 people visited Angel Island, sometimes referred to as the Ellis Island of the West because it was used for a time as an immigration station.

“These parks tell the story of California and who we are as a people,” said Susan Smartt, president of the California Parks Foundation. “It’s unthinkable that we would continue to allow our parks to deteriorate.”

Nick Franco, superintendent at Angel Island, has been through budget crises before and is philosophical about the latest one.

Cheerfully surveying the disarray he presides over, he referred to the park’s deteriorating buildings affectionately as “fixer-uppers.”

“It wasn’t like someone had just moved out and we let it fall apart,” Franco said of the military sites that had been abandoned for decades by the U.S. Army and other federal agencies before the state took over in 1963. “We got falling-apart buildings given to us. Now they are falling apart more.”

Franco recently gave visitors a backstage tour of Angel Island, opening padlocked buildings to show the extent of the maintenance backlog, which he estimates will cost $113 million to fix -- the largest repair bill in the state park system.

The seaside climate accelerates deterioration of the park’s infrastructure, while its location, accessible only by ferry, inflates repair costs by 30%, Franco said. “If a workman forgets something in his truck, we’re talking about a four-hour turnaround,” he said. “The clock starts ticking when they leave to get over here.”

Guiding a white van along the road that rings the island, Franco pointed out examples of the decay.

Red tile roofs on 1910 Mission Revival buildings are in decent shape, but repair for a rusting metal roof nearby will cost $1 million, he said.

“This one is just about lost to us,” Franco said wistfully, standing in the hulk of a big-shouldered military headquarters building. The massive doors were held closed only by a chain and a fist-sized padlock.

Franco fished out a key, unfastened the lock and stepped into a high, bright entrance hall illuminated by sunlight streaming down from a wall of broken windows. The ceilings, walls and floors were destroyed.

In the cavernous mess hall, Mickey Rooney once entertained troops. The view out the gutted window frames is spectacular. Aged and gnarled oak trees descend steeply and give way to a rocky beach. The Golden Gate Bridge provides a colorful backdrop.

Franco moved carefully down a staircase to the murky basement, where soldiers’ meals were cooked, the crockery washed and food stored. The low ceiling is bowed and rotten. Pools of brackish water spot the tile floor.

When Franco reached to open the panel door of a circuit breaker, the entire fuse box disintegrated in his hand.

At the old immigration station, a tableau of wax figures illustrating an interrogation of Chinese immigrants is being gnawed away by rats.

At first, rangers noticed parts of fingers missing, then pieces of ears and noses.

Lacking money to seal holes in the building, rangers set traps and locked the room at night. Then they began rotating the figures to obscure the missing parts until the figures were arranged at such odd angles that the display’s meaning was lost.

“We’ve learned how to make do,” Franco said. “When you can’t afford to fix things, you can get pretty creative.”