Belt-tightening taking a toll on parks

WASHINGTON — Staffing shortfalls are causing national parks to close visitor centers, eliminate ranger-led educational programs and leave natural resources unprotected, a nonpartisan advocacy group said Tuesday.

The nation's 387 federal parks are getting only 65 percent of the money they need to operate at full staffing levels, said Ron Tipton, senior vice president of the Washington-based National Parks Conservation Association.

As a result, fewer park rangers will be on hand to greet the millions of people seeking information on the history and environment of the parks they visit, Tipton said. And threatened and endangered plants and animals in the national parks will have less protection, he said.

The parks advocacy group wants Congress to increase the National Park Service's $1.6 billion operating budget by $240 million next year and by similar amounts over the next two years.

The request comes at a time when Congress is promising to curb domestic spending to help pay for the war in Iraq and to reduce a roughly $500 billion budget deficit.

"Clearly, it's a long shot," Tipton said.

But he added, "It's an election year, and national parks are popular in election years. I guarantee you'll hear from the president and Sen. (John) Kerry on this issue."

National Park Service spokesman Dave Barna did not dispute the group's numbers. They're based on business plans the Park Service and NPCA jointly developed for each park several years ago.

"We've had other priorities that overwhelmed us in the last few years," Barna said. "Homeland security and the war on terrorism has cost us a lot of money.

"The public would be disappointed if we weren't protecting these memorials (from terrorists.)"

Three code-orange high security periods cost the Park Service $63,000 a day for additional security for a total of $8 million last year, Tipton said. Also for the past three years, Congress has given the Park Service only about half the money it needs to give employee raises, causing parks to leave open positions vacant and cut other programs, Tipton said.

The Park Service has gone from 2,690 permanent and seasonal interpretive rangers in 1999 to 2,518 permanent and seasonal interpretive rangers this year — a 6.4 percent cut.

Among the impacts of these cuts cited in the NPCA's study are: