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
That is your opinion, not mine. I would rather see the parks get the money and put it to use for their betterment.
EC, those two goals are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they work all too well together. Increased efficiency increases the ability of government to control every aspect of your existence.
Duncan, thanks for pointing out that, as citizens who are taxpayers, there are certain government functions to which people are actually entitled.
That is far different from the attitude so often exhibited by people who have managed to claw their way to an upper level of society -- too often by taking unfair advantage of those same entitlements -- who then denigrate and try to deny privileges of citizenship to people they deem to be beneath them.
The Tea Party and Mr. Romney with his comment about the 47% come quickly to mind. So do many of the millionaires who now infest Congress. It's kind of like the old kid's game King of the Mountain. Some folks figure that if they climbed to the mountain top, they now own the summit and there's no room up there for anyone else.
And Mr Romney was right, those "poor" that can't afford the $20 to enter a park are the same 47% that aren't paying any taxes yet still feel "entitled".