The National Park Service plans to cut millions of
dollars in trail and building repairs to cover its share of the
“war on terror.” Since 2001, the Park Service has moved
more of its rangers to parks with international borders and
high-profile icon parks such as the Statue of Liberty. As rangers
are reassigned, their home parks are building up extensive costs in
overtime pay for the remaining employees.
An internal
memo, obtained by the watchdog group Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility, says that the Pacific West region of
the Park Service is proposing to cut its repair budget by 28
percent, or $4.6 million, to pay for anti-terrorism
measures.
The Pacific West region includes California,
Nevada, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii, but Park Service spokeswoman
Elaine Sevy says the repair budget cuts are system-wide. At the
current “code orange” alert level, the Park Service
spends an additional $2 million each month in security costs
— but because the agency is not included in the Department of
Homeland Security, it does not receive any additional funding for
anti-terrorism expenses. Sevy says cutting the repair budget is the
“strategy that will have the least impact on park
operations,” and most projects can be delayed for a year
without causing any problems.
But those cuts will deepen
the Park Service’s budget crisis: The agency has a $5 billion
repair backlog, and a recent study by the nonprofit National Parks
Conservation Association found that the Park Service’s
operating budget is 34 percent short of its needs. Repair projects
that may be shelved include $250,000 in trail maintenance
throughout the park system and seismic retrofitting of buildings at
Golden Gate Recreation Area. Reallocation of repair funds will have
to be approved by the Department of the Interior and
Congress.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Park Service guts budget to fight terrorism.
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