Parks urged to mark 100th

GATLINBURG, Tenn. — Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne found a receptive audience in the Great Smoky Mountains as he began a national listening tour to promote a Bush administration plan to give the national park system a $3 billion gift for its 100th birthday in 2016.

Kempthorne issued a call for special projects tied to the centennial during an overflow meeting Tuesday of nearly 200 supporters and neighbors of the Smokies national park.

"Mr. Secretary, you have said we need to go after the big ideas and I really appreciate that," said Don Barger, regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. "We shouldn't squander this opportunity."

Barger's organization says the park system has been operating with a shortfall of more than $800 million, resulting in a backlog of maintenance work and land acquisition. Barger said both areas should be priorities now.

Warren Bielenberg, a retiree who worked for the park service for 31 years, urged the secretary to increase park staff. "We need to get more park staff in the parks. We are depending too much on volunteers," he said.

Several people said creative ways must be found to broaden the parks' appeal to young people and to new citizens, reaching out to them through everything from iPods to interpretative programs.

"People can't love what they don't know," said Mark Singleton, executive director of American Whitewater in Sylvan, N.C.

The one issue on which people were divided was the completion of the North Shore Road, otherwise known as the "road to nowhere," around Fontana Lake on the North Carolina side of the park.

Smokies Superintendent Dale Ditmanson said the park service will issue a decision on a preferred alternative — either to build the $600 million road or not build it but pay Swain County $52 million in compensation — in four to six months. He wouldn't say which way the park service is leaning.

Kempthorne said President Bush wants recommendations by May 31 on the Interior Department's plans for the park system's 100th anniversary and wants action soon.

"The president has been very clear that he would like to use these 10 years as the time of preparation," Kempthorne said. "It is not simply to roll out a master plan in 10 years. But instead it is to roll up our sleeves right now and get to work."

The goal is to have "actual projects on the ground, new programs that have been implemented that are in place" by 2016, the former Idaho governor said.