National Parks Cut Services for Visitors

Watchdogs say jobs, visitor center hours are being reduced

by Zachary Coile
San Francisco Chronicle - May 28, 2004

Just as the busy summer travel season starts this Memorial Day weekend, a new report has detailed serious staff shortages at America's national parks that have led to cuts in visitor center hours, less litter removal and building maintenance and fewer interpretive programs for visitors.

The report released Thursday by the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees appears to contradict recent statements by Bush administration officials that tight budgets would not affect visitors' experiences at the 388 national parks, seashores, historic sites, recreation areas and monuments.

The retired Park Service career employees surveyed their former colleagues to collect information on a dozen parks across the country and found that six of the parks either had reduced or planned to reduce visitor center hours or days.

All 12 of the parks cut full-time or seasonal staff positions -- from law enforcement officers to wildlife biologists to maintenance personnel -- leading to fewer interpretive programs at most parks as well as reductions in scheduled maintenance and delays in projects to preserve historical sites and protect natural resources.

"America's national parks are in a bad way -- and they are only getting worse," said Bill Wade, the former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, now a spokesman for the Park Service retirees group.

For example, at Death Valley National Park the number of law enforcement positions has been cut from 23 a few years ago to the current 15. The cuts have forced officials to focus their law enforcement efforts around visitor centers, leaving much of the 3.4 million-acre park -- the largest national park outside Alaska -- unpatrolled.

J.T. Reynolds, the park's superintendent and a 33-year Park Service veteran, acknowledged the staffing shortage had become a major problem.

"Death Valley is about 95 percent wilderness area," Reynolds said. "We have over 600 miles of backcountry wilderness roads, and those areas get neglected -- which means our core mission of resource protection, for the most part, is neglected."

Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area near Spokane, Wash., has slashed its staff of seasonal employees from 70 in 2002 to 41 this year. And Olympic National Park in Washington, which draws 3 million visitors a year, has been forced to close its main visitor center two days a week.

The group also accused Interior Secretary Gale Norton, National Park Service Director Fran Mainella and other top agency officials of trying to obscure the effects of tight budgets by telling Congress and the public there would be no significant cuts in visitor services.

Mainella told a House Appropriations subcommittee in March that the agency had enough money to provide "outstanding visitor services," despite modest budget increases the last two years.

"The National Park Service budget this year has ... more funds per employee, per acre, per person, than any time in our history," Mainella said.

Those comments came just a week after the release of an internal National Park Service memo that told park superintendents in the Northeast they would likely have to make major service cuts -- such as closing visitor centers for one or two days a week and eliminating lifeguard and park ranger positions. The memo also urged the superintendents to avoid a public and media outcry by referring to any service cuts as "service level adjustments."

But Wade said the findings in the report released Thursday "cast some very serious doubt on the truthfulness of the testimony by Director Mainella."

Holly Bundock, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service's Pacific West region, which includes California, said that despite modest budget increases, the agency struggles each year to keep from cutting services because of rising personnel costs, which make up more than 90 percent of its budget.

Last year, Park Service and other employees received a mandatory pay increase of 4.1 percent -- which was approved by Congress, but lawmakers only approved enough money to cover 1 percent of the costs. Superintendents at each of the parks have had to juggle to cover the rest, Bundock said.

"Sure, we'd like more money, there's no doubt about that," Bundock said. "But this is a historical issue. It's not a brand-new issue."

The retired employees' report released Thursday doesn't mention Yosemite National Park, among the nation's most visited sites. Park Service officials have said money woes won't significantly affect visitor services at Yosemite.

The Park Service's budget constraints are showing in many ways, however. The agency is preparing a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its newest park -- the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond -- on June 5. But the new park is struggling to fund even a fledgling operation in its office in Richmond's City Hall.

"Our budget is $180,000; we have two people on staff, and we are going to open up our visitor center, but we won't have any staff in it," said Judy Hart, the park's superintendent. She said that for now the park would have to make do with volunteers, but it is lobbying for more money for Congress.

A study released in March by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, found the number of permanent rangers had dropped 16.4 percent since 1980, and the number of seasonal employees had fallen by 23.9 percent. The group concluded the agency needed $600 million more a year to pay for having enough staff to avoid cuts in visitor services.