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       Oregonian
       Tuesday, July 20, 2004

       Bush team glosses over parks crisis

     ROBERT LANDAUER

     Few of us are accountants, mathematicians or arbitrageurs. Still,
     numbers can sing to us or screech at us. Numbers relating to our
     national parks are coming up painfully off-key.

     The National Park Service manages 388 parks, 26,000 historic
     structures and buildings, 8,500 monuments, 12,000 miles of trail,
     5,500 miles of paved roads and 6,000 miles of unpaved roads.

     An Interior Department report on July 8 chanted hymns about
     substantial improvements in national park operations during the last
     three years.

     That's mystifying because we've been reading that added costs,
     especially for security and firefighting, have overwhelmed the
     positive effects of modest budget increases.

     Operations in the U.S. parks are being underfunded by $600 million a
     year, according to a March 16 report by the nonpartisan National
     Parks Conservation Association (www.npca.org/media%5Fcenter/).
     Everyone argues that their interest is underfunded, so the claim of
     poverty isn't surprising. That doesn't mean it's untrue.

     In this case, it is startling to see how few numbers it takes to
     wipe away the gloss Interior puts atop realities of large
     maintenance backlogs and dwindling service to parks visitors.

     One example of the budget-increase deceptions, says Rep. Norm Dicks,
     D-Wash., is the 1.4 percent more allotted for National Park Service
     staffing this year. The problem is that the parks had to pay a 4.1
     percent cost-of-living increase. "On the surface it may look like an
     increase, but in the parks it results in positions that are
     unfilled, trails that deteriorate and facilities that don't get
     repaired," the ranking Democratic member of the House Interior
     Appropriations Subcommittee said.

     Staff counts are down and maintenance backlogs are up as Olympic
     National Park in Washington gets $10 million a year instead of the
     $16 million it needs to service its 3 million visitors.

     Crater Lake National Park in Oregon has less to spend, too.
     Firefighting and other costs are up; guided hikes and natural
     history talks for visitors, along with maintenance, are down.

     The 270-member Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees
     (www.npsretirees.org) issued a fact-versus-fiction rebuttal on July
     8 of Interior's glowing claims about park conditions. The retirees
     have insiders' access to NPS memos, so their ripostes carry a patina
     of authenticity. Examples:

     Fiction: There is more money for parks now than ever.

     Fact: The National Park Service appropriation is the largest ever,
     but support reaching the parks is dropping. More than 85 percent of
     the parks started out this year with a smaller base operating budget
     than last year.

     Fiction: President Bush has spent billions to attack the $4.9
     billion to $6.8 billion maintenance backlog problem.

     Fact: In 2000, Bush pledged to spend $5 billion to eliminate the
     backlog of park maintenance projects. New spending for the backlog
     program, though, has been $662 million, not the $2.9 billion claimed.

     The rest of the $2.9 billion is simply for ongoing projects such as
     road construction and has nothing to do with the maintenance backlog.

     Fiction: No major park services are being cut.

     Fact: Visitor center hours have been reduced and interpretive
     programs slashed by 50 percent at Shenandoah National Park and
     Olympic National Park. Restrooms have been closed in the Lake
     Roosevelt National Recreational Area. Trail, campground and picnic
     area maintenance has been reduced in Death Valley National Park.
     Routine maintenance in the National Cemetery at Fredericksburg &
     Spotsylvania National Military Park have been cut in half. The list
     goes on.

     Distortion: There is more money for parks per acre, per visitor and
     per employee than ever before.

     Fact: Accounting trickery gives an illusion of progress. There is
     more money per worker and visitor because staffing and park
     attendance have been down during the last three years. There is more
     money per acre because park acreage has remained essentially flat
     while the budget has gone up.

     Two problems intersect here: (1) weak Bush administration support to
     maintain the national parks heritage and (2) denial that there is
     problem.

     The second is the more destructive.

     Reach Robert Landauer at 503-221-8157 or
     [log in to unmask]

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