Visitor Safety, Resources, Services Now ‘Seriously Compromised’ As Result Of Cuts — Summer 2006 U.S. National Park Report

37-Park Review by Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR) Finds Nearly All Parks Suffer From

Reduced Law Enforcement, Emergency Response Personnel; No Longer Able to ‘Hide’ Service and Maintenance Woes From Public

WASHINGTON, D.C. Visiting a national park this summer? If so, you should expect reduced law enforcement protection, longer emergency response times, fewer lifeguards, scaled back water and trail safety patrols, dirtier campgrounds and other visibly deteriorating facilities and resources, according to a major new report based on a 37-park review by the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR), an organization of more than 515 former NPS employees with an accumulated 15,000 years of national park experience.

Entitled “Reality Check: What Visitors to America’s National Parks Will Experience During Summer 2006,” the CNPSR report concludes: “Despite ‘happy talk’ assurances from political appointees at the Department of the Interior and National Park Service, all is not well this summer in America’s national parks. A Coalition of National Park Service Retirees analysis of the status of 37 national parks finds widespread evidence of major problems that will be evident this summer – including decreased safety for visitors, longer emergency response times, endangerment of protected resources, and dirtier and less well-maintained parks – and that the problems will only grow worse in the coming years.”

Bill Wade, the former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park and chair of the Coalition’s Executive Council, said: “The budget crisis in our parks is real and it will be felt keenly by park visitors this summer. Nearly all surveyed parks will have fewer law enforcement rangers on the job this summer to protect park visitors and park resources. Our intention here is not to be alarmist, but to ensure that American citizens and lawmakers know the facts: Forget about cutting the flesh or any ‘fat.’ We are now cutting deeply into the sinews and bones of our national parks. Congressional budget increases of recent years have been welcome, but these modest hikes have only succeeded in bringing some parks out of the depths of the financial abyss and back to its brink. The sad fact is that these budget add-ons are the proverbial drop in the bucket of at least $600 million in operations funding deficits and an enormous maintenance backlog of up to $7 billion.”

Bill Supernaugh, the former Superintendent of Badlands National Park and a member of the CNPSR Executive Council, said: “It is important to understand that there is more to the problems this summer in national parks than a higher level of risk posed to visitors and resources.

Effectively, there is no meaningful preventative maintenance program today in the NPS because very few parks now have the resources to carry out such a program. Unfortunately, today’s preventative maintenance deferral turns into tomorrow’s increase in the already multi-billion-dollar NPS maintenance backlog. Reduced seasonal employee hiring contributes directly to increased maintenance backlogs, increased resource crimes, and the increased prevalence of the already shameful number of shabby and ill-kept national park sites and facilities.”