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May 16, 2004

Rescuing the National Parks

It is mainly the views that lure nine million visitors a year to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The problem is that on some days no one can see anything. Over the last few decades, average visibility in summer months has shrunk from 77 miles to 15, and it is not at all unusual for visitors who climb to Look Rock, high on the park's northern edge, to find themselves cocooned in a uniform, whitish haze. This haze is not to be confused with the blue mists that arise after rainstorms and give the Smokies their name. It is man-made, consisting mostly of sulfates produced by coal-fired power plants upwind of the park. One administration after another has failed to deal adequately with this problem despite Congress's express mandate more than 25 years ago to do so.

Haze is not the only indignity inflicted by man and nature on Great Smoky, which straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina border and is by far the country's most heavily visited national park. Roads, trails and campsites are falling apart. The forests themselves are at the mercy of insects the government cannot be bothered to find the money to fight. The park consistently falls short of what it might be and what its loyal caretakers believe it can be.

Great Smoky is not alone among the nation's national parks in its failure to meet expectations. Hardly any of the Park Service's 387 parks, historic sites and monuments are trouble-free. Joshua Tree National Park, in California, is threatened by residential development; Padre Island National Seashore and Big Thicket National Preserve, both in Texas, by oil and gas drilling. Roads and buildings in Glacier National Park are in appalling shape; Yosemite is choked with traffic. Biscayne National Park is vexed by overfishing and pollution. The backlog of deferred maintenance has budged little from the $5 billion deficit President Bush inherited; the operating budget is about two-thirds of what the parks need just to maintain the status quo.

In Great Smoky, where the backlog is approaching $170 million, park managers struggle to repair trails, care for the park's vast archeological and cultural heritage — including the largest collection of log cabins in the United States — and mount a sustained counteroffensive against the beetles and other invasive species that threaten the park's hemlocks, firs, dogwoods and beech trees. There is not even enough money to educate the park's visitors on what they are seeing. Each year about two million people make a beeline for Cades Cove, a 6,800-acre valley rich in animal life and cultural history. The park has exactly 1.5 "interpretive rangers" — one full-time, one half-time — for people who seek guidance.

"It's like having a great university," says Don Barger, regional director of the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, "and no faculty."

With the peak season for park visits almost upon us, this page has begun reviewing the troubled park system, including several parks in immediate crisis as well as general problems of money and management. Mr. Bush, who made such a big deal of the parks during his presidential campaign, has not come close to delivering on his promise to clean up the maintenance backlog. But this has been a bipartisan failure not only by indifferent presidents but also a long line of irresponsible Congresses.

To some extent, the problem is rooted in the expansiveness of Congress's original promises to the American people: to preserve the biological integrity of the parks while at the same time encouraging broad public access. The tension between these two objectives has existed ever since the first park was established in Yellowstone in 1872, and it has only increased as the number of park units has grown (by more than 80 in the last 25 years) and the number of visitors has approached 300 million. Nevertheless, the legislation that established the National Park Service in 1916 made clear that when a choice arises, the government must manage parks in ways that "leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

Too often the government has erred on the side of access, at nature's expense. The most flagrant recent example has been the Bush administration's bizarre campaign to keep snowmobiles in Yellowstone, despite opposition from Park Service professionals. Far more damaging over the long haul has been Congress's unwillingness to give the parks the wherewithal they need to handle the increasing strain on their resources.

Great Smoky is a classic example of the corrosive combination of Congressional neglect and wrongheaded meddling. The North Carolina half of the park falls into Charles Taylor's Congressional district. Mr. Taylor, a Republican, runs the House subcommittee that doles out money to the Park Service. But instead of rescuing Great Smoky and the rest of the system from deprivation, Mr. Taylor seems fixated on building a $500 million road along Great Smoky's southern flank that would not only worsen air pollution but also squander resources that could better be used elsewhere. If Great Smoky is the poster child for what ails the parks, Mr. Taylor is the poster child for Washington's inability to find a cure.

The money we spend on the parks, about $2.4 billion a year, is one-tenth of 1 percent of the total federal budget of $2.4 trillion, not much more than a rounding error. Surely a nation as wealthy as this one can do better. These are our jewels, deserving of far more jealous safekeeping than we are giving them now.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company


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