From Deseret News archives:

Utah parks feel pinch

10 of 13 National Park Service units in state saw cuts

Published: Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 12:54 a.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
Second in a three-part series

Ask any national park superintendent in Utah what new or expanded government-funded services their parks provided visitors this year. Their answer is almost always the same: none.

But they usually can list several cuts — ranging from slicing staff to reducing visitor center hours, reducing law enforcement patrols and even cutting back on garbage collection.

That comes even though the Bush administration claims election-year credit for park operations budgets that — as stated in a recent Park Service pamphlet about administration accomplishments — offer "more funds per employee, per acre and per visitor than any time in the history of the National Park Service."

A Deseret Morning News analysis of published base park budgets shows that 10 of the 13 National Park Service units in Utah were cut between 2003 and 2004. (The first installment of this series, which ran Sunday, detailed that three of every four parks nationally also had base budgets cut this year — even though overall, combined funding was up slightly.)

Story continues below
The administration says those published budgets did not include money from several national programs for resource improvement or repair projects. It says if that project money is added, most parks had budget increases this year — including eight of 13 Utah NPS sites.

No matter whether budgets are actually up or down, park superintendents and Interior Department data indicate cuts at Utah parks are common, and service enhancements are rare.

Following is a park-by-park look at budgets and resulting service cuts (listed in order of those with the biggest cuts in base budgets to the smallest).

Glen Canyon

Base budget: $163,000 decrease

Budget with project funding: $2.8 million decrease

This Lake Powell national recreation area had the 11th-largest cut to its base operations budget of any park in the nation: $163,000. (Interior Department data that included additional year-to-year project funding showed a far greater cut this year for the park: $2.8 million — but project funding can vary greatly annually.)

The Interior Department, in a written response to Morning News inquiries, said resulting operations cuts there include, "Permanent staff is taking on more responsibilities often performed in the past by lower-level seasonal staff. The contracts for garbage removal have been reduced from daily pickup to every other day."

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

Image

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Arches has had no service cutbacks in the past year, but administrative support has been reduced.

previousnext

Latest comments

Editorial: 10 years of TRAX

Sorry earlier I meant to say that tracks seems to travel at 35 miles an hour...

'Peter Frumhoff, the director of science and policy at the Union of...

The Non-BCS crowd ought to create their own title game...their own brand, and...

Letters: Democrats' ethics

That's the whole of your defense of GOP resistance to badly-needed ethics...

Your criticism should hardly be focused on Bennett alone. What about all the...

'Wired's Threat Level blog reported on November 20 that Gavin Schmidt, a...

The reality of climate change is supported by multiple lines of evidence and...

BYU professor remembered

I had the priviledge of staying in the LeBaron home on severl occasions as I...

Letters: Growing jobless rate

So the unemployment rate has dropped to "just" 10%, huh? I wonder what that...

Ahh for the love of money...what money can buy!!!

Advertisements