It’s Nothing New

We may be angered at the Trump administration for decertifying a number of national parks, opening wilderness and sensitive shorelines to fossil fuel and mineral extraction, even as receptacles for industrial waste, but there is a huge problem, dating back into the Obama administration and beyond, that no one is talking about: so much of our national park infrastructure is crumbling. Trails and facilities have closed or are simply unusable due to a dramatic failure to maintain what we have.

“The National Park Service is the protector of some of America’s greatest environmental and cultural treasures. Yet a huge funding shortfall means that the strain of America’s passion for its parks is showing. Trails are crumbling and buildings are rotting. In all there is an $11bn backlog of maintenance work that repair crews have been unable to perform, a number that has mostly increased every year in the past decade.

“‘Americans should be deeply concerned,’ said John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). The National Park Service, he argued, is hamstrung by a lack of resources and is in ‘triage mode.’…

“National parks are just one part of an unparalleled system, managed by the government and held in trust for the public, and spanning over 600m acres of forests, deserts, tundra and glacier-covered peaks, as well as historical sites such as the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. They are integral to American life: an ancestral home for Native Americans; a retreat for vacationers, sportspeople and hunters; a source of grazing; and an economic engine. Yet their future is uncertain.

“Earlier this month [January] 10 members of a National Park Service advisory board, which had promoted issues such as encouraging more minority visitors, quit en masse, complaining that the new administration was unwilling to meet with them and was not prioritizing the parks.” The Guardian UK (January 29th). Donald Trump clearly has no intentions to address these issues, preferring to cut taxes for the rich and build a wall – that Mexico is supposed to pay for – that virtually no security experts believe can remotely serve its intended purpose.

Indeed the priorities of the Department of Interior seem to be focused on deregulation and industrial access vs environment concerns. Look who’s running that agency: “[Environmental] advocates have raised concerns that the Department of Interior, which oversees many federal lands, is staffed with lobbyists for the energy industry. Even absent such issues, climate change, privatization and energy extraction risk changing the face of the country’s public spaces forever.” The Guardian. We are looking at one of America’s greatest assets, natural preserves we intended to protect for as long as this nation exists. We inherited a magnificent landscape, but with that comes the notion of taking responsibility for that land… for ourselves and for future generations of Americans.

The joy of the parks does generate massive revenue as well. “National parks recorded 331m recreational visits in 2016 (the highest ever), boast an estimated economic value of $92bn, and have totemic significance in the national imagination… Yet signs of deterioration are evident across the park system.

“At the Grand Canyon, a 1960s-era pipeline that transports all drinking water to the park’s thronged South Rim, and is also intended for fire suppression, is 20 years past its design life. It breaks anywhere from a half-dozen to over 20 times a year, requiring repair crews to helicopter in for repairs that can take days. The cost to fix each breakdown is as much as $25,000, and officials say it may take $124m to replace it.

“At Harpers Ferry national park, the setting for a town with civil war associations and an abolitionist uprising, officials have been unable to restore an 1848 building that they acquired decades ago. A base hospital during the war and later a school for former slaves, it is a solid-looking brick structure with tidy white verandas. Yet inside, it appears as if someone has taken a hammer to it… There was ‘massive disrepair,’ said Garder of the NPCA, who visited it in 2016. ‘The stairways were unsafe, there was water damage, the plaster was decaying and falling off the walls.’

“And at a striking and exposed point at Voyageurs national park in Minnesota, overlooking the water, the former site of the Ingersoll Lodge is now bare. The historic building was reduced to rubble in 2014, probably after heavy weather disastrously combined with uncompleted maintenance work and existing structural weaknesses. The remains of the cabin are currently stored off-site as officials debate whether to rebuild it.” The Guardian.

What’s missing in Trump policies seems to be what’s good for most of us… focusing on expending national values to benefit the few… and the richest few who need those benefits the least. You’d think that even conservatives might just want to conserve, given that they were the force that set up the national park system in the first place.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you care about these resources, please let your elected representatives know.