Editor's note: Harry Butowsky spent 36 years working for the National Park Service as an historian. In the following op-ed, he outlines concerns he has with the current direction the National Park Service is being taken.
As we begin 2015, which marks the 99th year since the establishment of the National Park Service and National Park System, some troubling trends are more and more apparent. A short review of recent articles should give everyone who supports our parks reason to pause and think about the future.
For example, a recent article in National Parks Traveler, Mount Rainier National Park's Staffing Woes Impact Winter Fun at Paradise, deserves notice. According to this article: "One of the busiest weeks of winter has brought heavy snows to Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state, but staffing woes have closed the sledding and snow play areas at Paradise, frustrating locals and businesses in the areas close to the Nisqually Entrance in the park's southwestern corner."
In addition, a recent press release from the National Parks and Conservation Association stated the following: "The National Park System has been damaged by compounded budget cuts over recent years. The October 2013 16-day government shutdown came on top of a long-term pattern of declining budgets followed by the damaging and indiscriminate across-the-board sequester cut. This pattern threatens the long-term protection of our national treasures and the countless local economies that depend on American families and international visitors having a safe and inspiring experience."
The simple fact of the matter is that the defense authorization bill, recently signed by President Obama, creates seven new national parks and expands nine existing parks, adding roughly 120,000 acres to the park system. The legislation, however, provides no additional funding for the expansion.
These stories raise an obvious question. How long can the nation continue to expand the National Park System and not fund our existing and new parks to the minimum level that the American people deserve and the resources require? When will we reach the breaking point, or perhaps are we there now? Parks are popular and important but what is the meaning of our National Park System when we have so many parks that they cannot be managed and supported? Can we continue to expand our system of national parks forever with no comparable increase in staffing and funding to operate and maintain those parks?
These reports are issued and then forgotten. They go nowhere because they do not represent serious consideration and hard thinking about how many parks we need and how many we can manage in the current fiscal climate.
This is a question that those of us who support the National Park System need to address. This is the question that the National Park Service should address. Over the past several years we have had been many reports and proposals on how to manage the future of the National Park System. Several reports over the last 10 years have provided a vision for the Service’s second century. A Call to Action (2011); America’s Great Outdoors: A Promise to Future Generations (2011); the National Parks Second Century Commission Report, Advancing the National Park Idea (2009); and The Future of America’s National Parks (the Centennial Report, 2007). These reports are issued and then forgotten. They go nowhere because they do not represent serious consideration and hard thinking about how many parks we need and how many we can manage in the current fiscal climate.
Today, the National Park Service lacks the leadership it needs to survive and prosper in today's fiscal climate. The management of the National Park Service lacks the will and insight needed to make the important decisions that will address the lack of resources needed to maintain our parks.
The problems of today are not difficult to discern. The national parks need to have an adequate number of rangers to provide for the safety of the visiting public. Roads, bathrooms and other public facilities need to be kept in a state of repair. Park visitor centers need to be manned by National Park Service employees who can respond to questions and help visitors enjoy their park experience. The Service needs sufficient numbers of professional cultural and natural resource managers to work with the parks and to serve the visiting public. At this time the service is losing the very professional staff it so urgently requires through retirement and buyouts.
So what can be done at this time? To start I recommend the following initial steps.
1. We should not stop the expansion of the system, as time moves on and new areas of historical and natural significance become apparent, but let us do so in a rational manner and not through large and unfunded omnibus bills. We have a process to ensure that parks are thoroughly studied, national significance and suitability and feasibility requirements are met. Let us follow our process.
Today, the National Park Service lacks the leadership it needs to survive and prosper in today's fiscal climate. The management of the National Park Service lacks the will and insight needed to make the important decisions that will address the lack of resources needed to maintain our parks.
2. At this critical time, the National Park Service with the support of Congress needs to examine the total number of national parks to determine which can be transferred to state, local or private communities to manage. Not all parks and historic sites are equal. Some will do quite well under the management of state and local jurisdictions. Indeed, many poorly managed and funded sites will do better.
3. The National Park Service also needs to implement a zero-based budgeting system that will look at all of the Regional and Washington, D.C., offices and programs to determine what is the value of the money we spend on these programs and what is the value that is returned to the American people for this effort. If a program or position does not produce tangible results, then it should be eliminated.
4. The National Park Service maintains many grant programs which are popular and worthy to many people. Some of these programs include the American Battlefield, Historic Black Colleges & Universities, Japanese American Confinement Sites, Native American Graves Protection & Repatriation Act, and National Center for Preservation Technology, Preserve America, Save America's Treasures and Tribal Heritage. These programs were started years ago for good and worthwhile reasons, but do they need to continue? At the very least, the National Park Service needs to ask this question.
The National Park Service has budgeted thousands of dollars for public relations campaigns to celebrate its 100th anniversary 2016. While this will serve as an effective way to gain public support for the National Park Service, a portion of this funding ought to be diverted to thoroughly examine the National Park System to ensure the longevity and health of our parks. We need to eliminate any duplication and waste that may be present to effectively manage our scarce resources (including both funding and personnel) in a more strategic and logical manner.
We cannot do more with less. In the final analysis, if we do nothing then we can only sit by and watch the entire system spiral down and collapse under poor management, excessive numbers and waste. I do not believe this should be the legacy of Stephan Mather, Horace Albright and the founders of the National Park Service in the 21st century. The American people deserve better.
Dr. Harry A. Butowsky retired on June 30, 2012, from the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. where he worked as an historian and manager for the National Park Service History e-Library web site. He is the author of World War II in the Pacific, a National Historic Landmark Study, six other landmark studies, as well as 60 articles on military, labor, science and constitutional history. Dr. Butowsky teaches History of World War I and World War II at George Mason University. His Ph.D. is from the University of Illinois.
Dr. Butowsky manages npshistory.com, which contains thousands of NPS reports and articles.
Comments
What I am saying D-2 is that the good secretary took me to the woodshed for describing the history as it actually happened. It all started when he advised that I call my book back from the publisher (the first edition had just gone to press), since Phil Burton had "revolutionized" park history. In that case, I was pointing out, why wasn't he able to save the trees in Redwood Creek? In 1968, we could have had the entirety of that splendid old growth. Now we were getting just the leftovers and the stumps.
All Dr. Butowsky is asking, as John Muir asked, is whether the stumps will do. Because we can't have it all under the current system, no matter how Congress spins it. Do I like Hanford? I suppose I do, but I don't like Hanford if it means more stumps. I don't need a building to describe the Manhattan project, but yes, I need ancient redwoods to describe their glory. After all, we will not live another 500 years until they regrow.
Everything being said in these pages is true. But what is not being said is also true. Never in the 150-year history of the national parks has the system been fully funded. Never. Every sore in the system has been allowed to fester. When is that going to change? And in those few instances when we happened to save the trees (Olympic National Park), even that was too much for the bureaucrats who wanted something "less."
Am I too cynical? Perhaps. But I do know the history of what is at stake. My favorite quote since 1972 remains brutally intact. "Nothing dollarable is safe, however guarded." If John Muir was wrong, why are we still fighting over the crumbs of America the Beautiful?"
Duncan, you know the history as well as I. I know you have read NATIONAL PARKS: THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, including the chapter "Ideals and Controversies of Expansion." We will continue having these debates until we decide what exactly a national park should be. Meanwhile, do you mean to suggest that expansion is not "political?" But of course it is, and always will be. My good senators here in Washington State knew exactly what they were doing. They may be Democrats; they may be liberals, but they like bringing home the bacon, too. With every senatorial contest now costing upwards of $20 million, they need something to show their constituents that they "care."
And so the national park SYSTEM stays underfunded, along with the system that is the country. Why ? Because there is nothing jazzy about taking care of what you have. It is called maintenance and maintenance is boring. The best photo op is with waving hair. Cut the ribbon, senator! Wave at the crowd! Get your mug shot on tee-vee.
I ran for mayor of Seattle and heard the same from my team. So I waved and waved and waved. And then I told Seattle what it needed to hear. We cannot afford all of this stuff. Oops! That "stuff" is what people want. Now we are stuck with the stuff people wanted, including a boring machine deep in the Waterfront Tunnel that hasn't moved in more than a year. Who will "pay" to "free" the drill--Big Bertha, as we call her? Why, the taxpayers! They are loaded, right? No need to make choices when the money is limitless.
Again, all you say is true, except that the money is never limitless. But tell that to the people who want something. I did, and lost two to one.
Al:
I have read your book and I take it down from the shelf from time to time along with several others on parks and related topics. I return particularly often to Todd Wilkinson's 1998 book, "Science Under Siege," subtitled "The Politicians' War on Nature and Truth."
I would never propose that legislative actions are not political. I don't even think they can be nonpolitical. But I still think of the old definition of successful politics: "The art of the possible." We used to hire political officers to do the compromising we knew was needed to make things work. We chided them for doing what we wouldn't, but we knew we needed them to do it. We kept our virtue and they got the work done. The object was to achieve something, even if you can't get all you seek. In exchange, you also give the other side something, but they don't get all they seek, either.
Somehow, we've turned instead to a political all-or-nothing strategy: "If I can't have all I want, I won't let you have anything you want, either." In the long run, it's a self-defeating strategy. But it's an important part of the reason why we need to be careful about offering concessions to critics who offer nothing in return.
The Redwood expansion was a tragedy for what was lost that could have been saved just a decade earlier. But what came under the original Redwoods Act was what was possible at that time. Had we declined that as "not enough" then there wouldn't have been the possibility of even an inadquate expansion ten years on. I'm not sure it was all stumps, either. The expansion lands did save some redwoods. They also provided opportunities to forestall erosion and loss in lands already protected, so they were a benefit to the forest that had been saved.
Is preserving a building at Hanford comparable to saving a redwood tract? Maybe not, but a lot of people need the physical structure to provide context for what happened there.
A homebuilder I once knew said that he learned to his chagrin that some people have no visual imagination. They cannot view plans or schematics and comprehend what the final structure will look like. They can be bright, educated and articulate, but unable to translate from two dimensions to three. The physical legacy of buildings and boulders creates a depth of meaning that may be unnecessary if that same translation comes naturally to you.
How many veterans of Yosemite actually accept that Google street-view images can do justice to the experience of encountering the valley in its splendor? Why should it surprise us that the built environment is similarly different in person than in image or imagination? The minuscule boarding house where Thaddeus Kosciuszko lived in Philadelphia is as striking in its way as the Liberty Bell or Independence Hall. The physical structure is its own message; once seen, you understand a Revolutionary hero was living humbly while there.
Duncan
I must agree with Al Runte here, a great deal, not all, park expansion is very political. Our elected officials stay in office when they bring the bacon back to the district. Duncan, I do think there are examples of commissioned NPS areas that were a mistake, Mar-A-Largo comes to mind. "Steamtown is a classic political creation. I do understand however the danger of decommissioning areas, who is doing the evaluation, where does it end. I also think that the system has become extremely political, much more so than when I started. The NPS Director needs Senate confirmation, what is it now, the 18 SES positions are tenuous at best. I have seen 3 major park superintends removed from their positions with 24 hour notice. One of them for the sole reason sh/e was actually trying to move forward on an approved general management plan which a dramatic change in political leadership would simply not permit.
Depending on the political appointments at the highest levels of the departments, things can get pretty nasty. The James Watt administration comes to mind. I actually spent two different occasions with Mr. Watt, a horse back ride, he was an excellent horseman, and a helicopter orientation of the Mono Lake country, he did come out in support of protections for the Lake (is that correct Alfred?).
The above said, I do have a high regard for the vast majority of men and women who take on these high level positions. Its a daunting task. I can remember a guided backcounrty camping trip with the then NPS Director many years ago who had to contend with Congressman John Burton. His comments regarding Congressman Burton were distressing to say the least. Thank all of you, d-2, Duncan, Al, Rick, all the others, this is a very informative discussion.
Duncan please excuse, I had not seen you latest post in response Alfred Runte. I think you make an important point, "politics is the art of the possible". Persons who get totally locked into one view point without any room for conversation and compromise can make things very difficult to accomplish.
et tu, brutusman:
I am looking at it by Appropriation, not field vs central offices, but the way a budget analysist would understand it.
It is not perfect of course because Construction money may end up benefitting a park, same way Land Acquisition.
But if you go back, say to the end of the Clinton Administration to the last couple of years Operation of the National Park System has gone up over $800 M, while Construction, Land Acquisition (internal and "external" [hateful word]), and other "external" appropriations such as Historic Preservation Fund, Urban Parks, and Recreation and Preservation -- all have gone down proportionally. I believe ONPS for 2015 will be getting close to that 90% figure, whereas when I joined the Service it was around 50%.
You may preserve a virtuous distinction between the field part of this operation and central offices, but from most other perspectives it is no less artificial than the soldier in the battle of the buldge who thinks of himself as defiantly independent of the people who ship him supplies, or plan the effort, or obtain the funds, etc.
Although I agree with some of what you say, you must be as aware as anyone that parks themselves are less "flat" than they were 20 years ago, as more money sustains full time mid level staff. And with a park of $12 m you must also be aware that a park of $400,000 or $1.2 m will depend heavily upon central office staff in a way you or better funded parks never even think about.
And although i have a lot of antagonism to some of the accountability programs, that as far as i can see are required by DOI or OMB but provide no program improvements, although they do serve to back off OMB and Congress with the illusion of accountability, but at a very high price of diversion and distraction. I do think the Service needs a way to measure accomplishment, something that is not redundant but in fact is built into effecient and streamlined management. But that is not what we have. You must be aware that as positions disappear and others take the additional responsibilities on, the additional responsibility should mean higher grade. When i joined we had only 3 GS 15 superintendents. We have many more now, not to mention SES. But some of the work imposed on the Service from OMB and Congress and DOI has to happen and does take higher graded people. Superintendents and RDs can be held criminally accountable in an environmental audit, something I'd never heard of years ago. The salary increases over the years for senior permanent staff sucks out all the funding for seasonals or SCS. Much of this lack of flatness is not within the control of the Service, and continuing to suck staff away from innovative programs and mentoring from Regions or WASO is one reason why problems like the Effigy Mounds situations happen. Not to mention the generally unimaginative liaison work in the case of many parks with public constitutencies or with Congress. Since many superintendents lack some of these essential skills, which the Service pays for every day, it would be great, wouldn't it, to have a critical mass of skilled people in central offices who can share the skills and standards of excellence with mid level park people. Plus many of the "external" partnership programs have skills parks don't know that they need, but are essential in these times. We need to make sure this skill repository does not drift away, and instead need to set up cross-training between parks and such partnerships.
Merely flattening the organization and depleting central offices will not give the Service a sustainable system.
Dr Runte:
I guess i was not clear. Everyone understands of course it would have been better had the redwood landscape of 1967 survived.
But, to ask the question again, are you saying that Andrus and Burton should have walked away from trying to preserve as a park Redwood Creek as it existed in 1978?
Because if it was important to preserve what was left, at this last possible moment to do so, and worth the huge effort to get the legislation and appropriations through, can you imagine how it would have appeared to Cecil Andrus if you were just shaking your fist at the sky, and would have been willing to discourage Phil Burton from taking the task on, or deriding his commitment to do so?
The complaints about the past must have appeard pretty meaningless, or even damaging, to the vital challenge of the moment to Andrus, a genuine environmental hero.
If Andrus really thought you chose that moment to discourage Burton right at the last moment of opportunity for that remaining Redwood landscape, I'll be he felt he had no woodshed large enough.
Were you really telling them to give up the battle, really? And, that what they were trying to preserve was meaningless compared to your vision of 1967? I can't believe that.
But Dr. Butowsky was not talking about the "stumps" of the Redwood proposal. He was saying that the despite the park service doing the studies on every one of the new parks in this bill, despite the public hearings, despite reviews from Organization of American Historians, despite WASO, OMB and CBO reveiw, despite Congressional hearings, despite the favorable testimony of the National Park Service, the process was not proper and you and he, you think, believe these areas are just: "stumps?"
PS:, the Manhattan Project national historical park is a multi-state park.
Hi D-2. Of course I am not arguing that anyone should have "walked away" from Redwood Creek, trees or no trees, since yes, as Duncan points out, it is a critical watershed for the entire park. All I am saying is that the "process" of compromise Duncan and you so beautifully describe is the problem. Now with 400 plus parks under that process, how many more can the system stand? Andrus was arguing that yes, the "process" had been changed. And Burton had changed it. Get your book back from the publisher before it is dated! A New Day has arrived!
Well, no, and again, you beautifully describe why nothing has changed. We need to take (accept) what is achievable, or words to that effect. And so Muir's comment, "Nothing dollarable is safe," because only what is not "dollarable" can be achieved. That was in chapter 3 of my book (out of eight). I didn't need to write a chapter 9 honoring Phil Burton. Everything leading to his contribution (100 years of give and take) was in the first eight chapters. Of course, I got to Phil Burton in the second edition, then with Alaska as a further incentive.
Dr. Butowsky and I are writing as historians. We know where all of the skeletons are buried. And we know, because we are historians, than accepting skeletons has serious risks. Once you believe in a "balance of politics," you may never get over that belief, and yes, always take what you can get instead of what you really need. Had David Brower done that in the Grand Canyon fight, the canyon would have had at least one dam. Had Carsten Lien not written Olympic Battleground, who knows what Olympic National Park would look like now?
I agree: Some people just can't "see" it unless there is something to "see"--a building, a fort, a battleground. That is why we have the historical parks. And I happen to like Streamtown, too. Just look at the fifth edition of Trains of Discovery. But I know that everything has limits, and I know that those limits are under constant strain. At heart, I think Dr. Butowsky really wanted to talk about the History Division, which, on the eve of the Park Service Centennial, no less, has virtually been ignored--and gutted. But of course, who needs American history when the country is spinning out of control?
And so the politicians try to say they are still in control. See? We are still establishing new national parks! Yes, but they have no idea how they will fund them except by fund-raising, as it were. Some private partner will ride to the rescue and save us. Meanwhile, perhaps we will need to raise some fees. Whatever happened to the idea of funding the parks properly from the public treasury, with fees as just a reminder of the privilege of entering the parks as part of our common heritage?
That is all Dr. Butowsky is asking having seen his history website gutted to the bone. And what a terrific website it was. I didn't have to walk out of the house to find any public document on the national parks. I still don't, but now on his private website. History at the NPS? The politicians are saving the sites, but they sure are not saving the history. Give Dr. Butowsky a break. He is riding to the rescue--just as all of the politicians want--and doing it all for free.