270 Senior NPS Staffers - Bush "In Denial" On National Park Problems [View All]

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"A group of 270 former park service directors, superintendents and other senior officers, citing a "crisis at America's national parks," this month said Bush administration officials in charge of the parks are in "a state of denial about the grave problems" at the parks.

"There's no doubt that the parks are hurting more now than any time most of us can remember," said Bill Wade, a former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park and spokesman for the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees. The base operations budget for the parks increased by 0.6 percent this year (to $988.2 million), the smallest boost in a least a decade and not enough to cover mandated cost increases. Most individual parks - 297 of them - actually saw cuts in their operations budgets this year.

At the Smoky Mountains, the park's basic operating budget was cut from $15.6 million in 2003 to $15.3 million this year, even as costs rose for such things as a required $3 million radio system and a mandated 4.1 percent pay hike for employees. The park has left 19 jobs vacant - 11 percent of its 175 non-law-enforcement positions.

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The Smokies face a daunting array of challenges. Air pollution, primarily from coal-fired power plants, has cut visibility at its scenic overlooks from 100 miles to 25; an exotic insect, the woolly adelgid, is ravaging the hemlock trees that shade mountain streams and protect brook trout, and traffic jams are overwhelming Cade's Cove. "The health of the park is the most important issue to understand and may be the hardest," said Ditmanson.

Many national parks, including Great Smoky National Park is increasingly turning to private donors. This year, volunteers provided $4.2 million in cash and manpower, 22 percent of the park's basic support. A decade ago, volunteers provided just one percent. The Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a nonprofit group created 11 years ago, this year provided money for an ambulance and other vehicles, restoration of log cabins and for 95 percent of the 135 seasonal employees to cope with the surge of summer visitors. It's also paying $290,000 for a lab program to produce predator beetles to eat the harmful woolly adelgids."

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http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/nation/9301041.htm