Dear HCN,
I read with dismay Tony
Davis’ article, “Plans for a new park in Arizona” (HCN, 3/29/99) on
the movement to create a “Sonoran Desert National Park,” by
combining Organ Pipe National Monument, Cabeza-Prieta National
Wildlife Refuge and the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force
Range.
This proposal looks to me like another
grandiose scheme that would ultimately saddle an underfunded,
minimally staffed federal agency with yet another politically
compromised, underfunded nightmare. Just like Steamtown, the San
Francisco Presidio and Mojave National Preserve, no one will be
happy with the result, and ultimately everyone will blame the
National Park Service for another disaster not of its
making.
Sonoran Desert Park proponents fail to
consider the following:
* Not every parcel of
land is compatible with national park values. Certainly, military
training flights are not, especially at 200 feet above ground
level. Maybe javelinas and saguaros can co-exist with military
jets, but I doubt if it is “in harmony.” Considering a bombing
range as part of a national park is ludicrous.
*
Adding an area to the National Park Service does not guarantee
either wiser or more capable land management. Some lands are so
altered that they cannot be “restored” no matter what the expertise
or funding level. Practice-bomb craters and “vandal-ruined
sensitive areas’ don’t belong in a national park,
either.
* Tony Davis fails to mention what
species Cabeza-Prieta refuge was created to protect or provide
habitat for in the first place. Does the Park Service have some
magical ability to manage habitat and threatened/endangered species
that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lacks?
*
Ms. Peterman is correct when she assumes that the Park Service
would ban ORV use inside the new national park, but it wouldn’t
take “four or five years.” The Park Service invariably restricts
vehicular use to licensed vehicles and bans off-road
travel.
* The Park Service is not the only
federal land-use agency with either law enforcement or land-use
planning/management capability, as is implied in the article.
Neither is the agency “uniquely qualified” to “handle the problem,”
(attributed to Mr. Broyles). The best preservation solution may
very simply be better funding and/or different priorities for the
agencies currently managing these lands.
* Where
will the funding for this new national park come from? Congress?
Not likely in the current atmosphere on Capitol Hill. The result
will be the Park Service forced once again to stretch its currently
inadequate operating budget and staffing even thinner. You can also
bet that Organ Pipe National Monument won’t easily be prepared for
an expansion of the size contemplated.
“Sonoran
Desert National Park” might have been a great idea in 1966.
Unfortunately, it’s
1999.
Gerry
Wolfe
Death Valley,
California
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Park status doesn’t guarantee anything.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
