In a move not entirely surprising, U.S. Rep. Don Young of Alaska has proposed legislation to create a mechanism for states to take over management of national parks and other federal lands.
It's not surprising in that a number of states -- Utah, Colorado, Arizona, South Dakota, New York, and Tennessee -- stepped up last week to underwrite the costs of reopening parks in their states during the government shutdown.
As written, the legislation would require a state to put up at least 50 percent of the costs of running the national park in question to have its petition considered by the Interior secretary. If a state provided 55 percent of the costs of operation, it would receive 55 percent of the revenues that park generated. States would not be given title to the land.
States that gain such authority could relinquish it by writing the Interior secretary and asking to be relieved of its authority. The secretary also could void the agreement if the state defaults on payments or is found to have breached its agreement.
Introduced this past Tuesday, the bill has no cosponsors.
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Comments
State Park backlog in Sara's post only account for 7 states, not 50.
State Park acreage - about 15 million
NPS acreage - about 84 million
Which is all the more reason the NPS should be lower. They have vast quantities of pure wilderness that (should) require little if any maintenance. Designated Wilderness is more than half that acreage.
Anyone have the Park by Park allocation of the NPS maintenance budget?
ec--There is no free lunch. Wilderness has to be patrollled and maintained. I can't believe you somehow think it takes care of itself. SAR in wilderness is a significant expense in and of itself.
Rick
The 2012 North Cascades Business Plan, which includes Lake Chelan NRA and Ross Lake NRA, says deferred maintenance is $20M(pg 17).
http://www.nps.gov/noca/parkmgmt/upload/NOCA_4-30_spreads.pdf
Rick
Seems to me, the definition of Wilderness is that it takes care of itself.
Interesting comment about wilderness taking care of itself. I think to some extent it does. There are no roads but there are facilities, wilderness ranger stations, some wilderness enclaves like High Sierra camps, ski huts, hiker shelters, etc. On the other hand, some wilderness areas receive extensive hiker and pack stock use as well as climbing and winter nordic skiing activities. Here in the Sierra, summer use is high density, primarily backpackers (Yosemite overnight wilderness use is 95% backpackers, this does not include the day hikers, an extremely popular activity). I think that is good, but it does require wilderness permit systems, ranger and interpretive patrols, educational outreach on the need for the regulations in place, solid waste removal in high use areas and extensive trail maintenance efforts including clearing trees, rock slides, water bars for erosion control, etc. Then there are resource management activities including campsite restoration projects, invasive species control, wildlife issues, multiple trail elimination projects, well the list is quite lengthly. There are are some very important research projects, the amphibians issue, climate change monitoring, ecological or managed wilderness natural fire research are examples. Of course there is also course fire suppression and search and rescue responsibilities. I would have to double check my figures, but In Yosemite, as one example, funding for the above is about 5 million plus a year. Funding comes from many sources, for example the City of San Francisco provides some funding for water protection issues in the Tuolumne River drainage, the Yosemite Conservancy (a private non-profit), totally funds the trail maintenance programs. Congressional funding amounts to only about 50% of the total. These figures are very rough estimates but are in line with what the park was spending 10 years ago. It is a difficult balancing act for the park management team, but, in my view, the program is severely underfunded. Without the non-profits, grants, and other outside funding sources, there would be little wilderness management activity happening in the Yosemite wilderness area, roughly 95% of the park.
There are some that think that inherent in the definition of "wilderness" that might be good, in fact some citizens propose wilderness areas be set aside allowing no public use period. I do not agree with that viewpoint, but inherent in public use is the need for management activities such as those outlined above.
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rmackie - I never claimed there was NO maintanance required. My point, which Rick tried to obfuscate, was that those massive Wilderness and wilderness areas probably have far less infrastructure per acre than your typical state park. It would be interesting to see the numbers. What are the infrastructure investments and what is the maintenance backlog park by park?
EC, I will try to get that information and post it here on traveler.