[CPProt.net] USA: Ten reasons to reinvest in the National Park System

[Ellie Bruggeman]

Ten reasons to reinvest in the National Park System

Here are the Top 10 reasons, according to the National Parks 
Conservation Association, for reinvesting in the national parks, 
particularly those in the California desert:

• The parks' vulnerability to crime. California's desert parks comprise 
the largest concentration of national parklands outside of Alaska, yet 
they woefully lack the number of rangers needed to assist visitors in a 
timely manner and to adequately protect artifacts, plants and animals 
from theft, vandalism and poaching. Death Valley National Park's 
protection ranger division has only 14 rangers, down from 23 just a few 
years ago. Yet the park's widespread boundaries require the patrolling 
of 3.4 million acres.

NPS planning documents show that all three desert parks need to increase 
law enforcement staff by 100 to 200 percent in order to provide for 
public safety and to improve the parks' ability to investigate and 
detect resource crimes.

• Cutbacks have adversely affected the education of school children and 
park visitors. Public education and school outreach programs at Death 
Valley are practically non-existent, according to the report. Programs 
at the three desert parks are staffed at half the level of what is 
needed to adequately serve the public.

• Park roads are unsafe. Current Death Valley staffing levels allow for 
only emergency roadwork, resulting in a deteriorated road network with 
many areas that the local tow truck operator refuses to serve. Several 
roads are in poor shape: Bonnie Claire Road, the Beatty Cutoff and the 
south end of the Badwater Road in particular.

• Historic buildings are crumbling. Death Valley icon Scotty's Castle is 
in a state of disrepair. Funding is desperately needed for cleaning, 
maintenance, preservation and museum curation of castle furnishings and 
artifacts. Historic sites in the backcountry that portray Death Valley's 
mining and homesteading era are on the threshold of falling apart, 
becoming lost to history, due to insufficient means for stabilization.

• Museum collections are collecting dust. Death Valley has more than 
450,000 items in storage that need cataloging and made accessible to 
researchers, now and in the future. The Furnace Creek Visitor Center 
needs refurbishing to current museum standards, especially regarding 
environmental controls and visitor access. Exhibits need updating.

• Storms needn't drown the parks and their budgets. During the past 
year, summer storms killed two visitors and destroyed the primary 
highway entering the park. The road has been reopened, but flood damage 
and insufficient resources have meant that visitor attractions like 
Artist's Drive, Echo Canyon Road and Hole-in-the-Wall Road remain closed 
seven months after the floods.

• Invasive species are overrunning parks. The California desert parks 
need more funding to undertake restoration efforts to address a number 
of issues. In Death Valley, invasive species such as burros, mosquito 
fish, bull frogs, crayfish, red brome, Russian thistle and cheat grass 
plague portions of the park, impacting native species.

• Park science is inadequate. Death Valley lacks resources to develop 
strategies to reverse the population decline of the endangered Devil's 
Hole pupfish. The species is a barometer for the condition of many other 
threatened and endangered aquatic species in the Death Valley region. 
The park needs a team of aquatic scientists and hydrologists dedicated 
to water issues and to ensuring that urban encroachment on the park's 
critical springs and riparian habitat is kept at bay.

• Park facilities are in bad shape. Death Valley has too few maintenance 
staffers to clean restrooms. Other parks struggle to find money to buy 
toilet paper for visitor services. Death Valley's visitor center is 
antiquated and in a state of disrepair. The roof needs replacing.

• Neglected parks don't make good neighbors. Visitors to California's 
desert parks generated more than $95 million and 2,448 jobs in local 
communities just four years ago, according to NPCA studies. Parks draw 
people: retirees, working people and visiting snowbirds that bring their 
assets with them.

When parks are not given enough funding and staff to provide a quality 
visitor experience and to protect the park's resources for future 
visitors, then over time visitation levels will inevitably drop off. 
Tourism dollars will suffer.

http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2005/03/11/news/parkside.html