[at-l] Crossroads in the National Parks

[RoksnRoots at aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

        New York Times:


        
             " The Interior Department has extended the period in which the 
public may comment on the National Park Service's controversial plan to rewrite 
the management policies for the national parks.
 
         But the extension was unnecessary, just as the rewrite itself is 
unnecessary. The public has already spoken and so have its elected 
representatives. Their central message is that the administration's proposed revisions will 
serve no one, least of all the parks, and that the Interior Department would 
be well advised to abandon the effort.

           The main problem with the proposed revisions is that, taken 
together, they shift the management focus from the park service's central, historic 
mission - preserving natural resources for the enjoyment of future generations 
- to commercial and recreational use of the park for today's generation. As 
many members of the House and Senate have pointed out in letters to Interior 
Secretary Gale Norton, air quality and wilderness are especially at risk since 
the policy appears to invite greater use of snowmobiles and other off-road 
vehicles.

       We hope that Congress can dissuade Ms. Norton and her parks director 
Fran Mainella, from proceeding with these unnecessary changes. But even if it 
does, it will still have one more battle to fight. And that is to provide the 
money the National Park Service needs to operate the parks properly and to 
repair their deteriorating infrastructure. 

              President Bush's new budget calls for a $100 million cut in 
park appropriations. Viewed cynically, deliberately underfinancing the parks 
could create the necessary cover for opening the parks to more commercial activity 
- the last thing the parks need. It also makes a mockery of one of the few 
campaign promises George W. Bush ever made about the environment: his promise in 
2000 to end the maintenance backlog in the national parks. The sharpest cuts 
- some $84.6 million - would come from money for construction and major 
maintenance, the very area Bush promised to address.

           If there is a ray of hope here, it is that the administration is 
losing the battle where it matters most - on the ground. Despite efforts to 
cram snowmobiles down the public's throat, snowmobile use in Yellowstone has 
dropped this year, falling well below the 720 machines that are allowed into the 
park each day. Visitors - including former snowmobilers - are increasingly 
choosing to use snow coaches, the specially equipped buses that are vastly cleaner 
than even the cleanest snowmobiles. And Yellowstone is seeing a greater 
variety of visitors in winter than it used to see when snowmobilers dominated the 
park.

             This battle - as well as the larger battle over the park's true 
purpose  - isn't likely to end soon. Off-road vehicle groups are doing their 
best to pressure an already pliable park service leadership in Yellowstone and 
Washington into increasing access. But if the public and a broad array of its 
elected representatives - not to mention the men and women who have devoted 
their careers to the park service - want to see the parks carefully preserved 
and kept quiet and clean and safe, on whose behalf is the Bush administration 
really fighting? "








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