Source of this article - Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2006
By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer
SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS NATIONAL RECREATION AREA — Visitors to California's
national parks may be in for some unpleasant surprises this summer: unkempt
restrooms, shorter hours at visitor centers and fewer park rangers.
In
fact, many visitors may not see a National Park Service ranger, as the agency's
threadbare budget has forced officials to recruit volunteers to fill jobs
formerly performed by federal employees and to reduce or eliminate traditional
visitor services.
"The old saying in the park service is, 'We can do more
with less,' " said Craig W. Dorman, superintendent of Lava Beds National
Monument, near the Oregon border. "I don't think that's true anymore. We're now
in a position of doing less with less."
California is not alone.
Nationwide, the 390 parks, monuments, seashores and recreation areas managed by
the park service are experiencing "challenging" times, said agency Director Fran
Mainella.
At Acadia National Park in Maine, all seven restrooms along
trailheads and roads have been closed. At the Grand Canyon, the park's highly
popular education programs have been cut by one-third. At Glacier National Park
in Montana, officials shut off drinkable water at three campgrounds. And, while
scores of parks have cut hours at visitor centers or delayed their opening
dates, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado closed one of its six centers
for good.
The federal Government Accountability Office recently reported
that although the park service budget has risen slightly over the last few
years, its spending power has declined when adjusted for inflation.
Further, the report found that most major American parks, including
Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon, don't have sufficient funds for daily
operations. The April report concluded that all 12 parks studied had cut back on
visitor services, including "visitor center hours, educational programs, basic
custodial duties and law enforcement operations such as back-country
patrolling."
And while the agency struggles to whittle down a $5-billion
maintenance backlog, the Bush administration is proposing to cut $100 million
from its budget for next year, which begins Oct. 1. The agency's budget last
year was $1.7 billion.
On a recent morning at Santa Monica Mountains
National Recreation Area, a fourth-grade class from Norwood Street Elementary in
Los Angeles was on a nature hike led by a volunteer, as two-thirds of the park's
educational hikes are.
Park Supt. Woody Smeck, with a staff down by 12
people, said the schoolchildren were not able to visit the Satwiwa Native
American Indian Culture Center, which was closed.
The absence of rangers
is immediately obvious to visitors accustomed to uniformed park service
personnel on hand to give directions or answer questions about flora and fauna.
Those services, if they are offered at all, are conducted by volunteers at many
parks.
The work performed by volunteers at Santa Monica Mountains has
doubled in 10 years, Smeck said. Volunteers now run the visitor center, patrol
the backcountry on bikes, restore and repair trails, and conduct inventories of
wildlife, he said.
Radio-equipped riders from local mountain bike groups
patrol the park's trail system, monitor the conditions and report problems to
the park staff.
"Really, we have these folks doing core mission work,"
Smeck said.
Volunteers aren't a panacea, officials say. Some far-flung
parks, such as Lava Beds and Pinnacles national monuments, lack a large nearby
population base to draw from, forcing reduction in some programs.
And,
even at Santa Monica — essentially an urban park — volunteerism has its
limits.
"We could use more," Smeck said, "but don't have the staff to
train them."
Last year, 423 million people visited national parks around
the country and, according to surveys, 96% of the respondents said they thought
the National Park Service was doing a good job.
Park officials have been
attempting to make cuts invisible to visitors, with mixed results. Dorman, the
superintendent at Lava Beds, said that when staff openings occur, he fills the
vacancies at a lower pay grade. He authorizes fewer vehicle patrols, to save on
gas and maintenance, and assigns one person instead of three to staff the
visitor center.
At Yosemite, which attracts 3.4 million visitors every
year, eight seasonal rangers do the work of the 45 who used to be positioned at
various scenic spots to tell visitors about the park's natural wonders,
including waterfalls and rock formations. Six of the eight positions are funded
by the nonprofit Yosemite Assn.
During the summer, only one in five
interpretive programs will be conducted by a ranger, said park spokesman Scott
Gediman. Other tours are being led by guides hired by the park's commercial
concessionaire. Volunteers are pitching in as campground hosts and even
assisting law enforcement personnel.
"We're lucky here," Gediman said.
"We've had volunteers who have been here for 20, 25 years. And we have such a
great support from our friends groups."
Neglect is compounded at Redwood
National Park north of Eureka, which is co-managed by the park service and the
cash-strapped state park system.
"We're like two poor cousins trying to
help each other out," said Amy Caldwell, the administrative officer for the
national park.
Although no campgrounds have been closed, Caldwell said
rangers' campfire talks have been drastically cut and the park's custom of
sending rangers roaming along trails to answer questions is "almost
nonexistent."
Indeed, fireside talks conducted by park rangers and trail
walks led by wildlife biologists are part of a bygone era at most parks.
Pinnacles National Monument, southeast of Salinas, is home to the park
service's only condor reintroduction site. Traditionally, rangers stationed
themselves near condor viewing areas to answer questions. Now, with staffing
down by 25%, the popular program has been cut.
Park Supt. Eric Brunnemann
said ruefully that visitors are left to their own devices.
"Now we just
tell people, 'You'll see 'em from the high peaks. Have a nice walk.' "