Why does the National Park Service seem to be more interested in solving Wi-Fi connectivity in the parks than providing water?/NPS, David Restivo photo to illustrate that cell reception and WiFi connectivity is very limited in Glacier National Park

If all goes well, you'll be able to pick up high-speed Internet in all national parks by 2018. Finding a water-filling station? Well, probably not.

In a strategy that seems strange, the Park Service is hell-bent to wire the National Park System but isn't in quite the same hurry to have water-filling stations available for visitors to quench their thirst.

Why the emphasis on Wi-Fi? Shane Compton, the Park Service's chief information officer, says part of it is to provide more park information to visitors. The other part is so they can bring their work with them to the park.

"I can tell you the complaints we get when somebody goes in to a park and finds a hotel doesn’t have high-speed Wi-Fi so they can do their work while they are on vacation," Mr. Compton told Federal News Radio back in December. "It’s an expectation now so IT has to make sure it’s there.”

There once was an expectation that the Park Service would see water-filling stations in at least 75 percent of the visitor facilities across the park system by this year. But that goal, noted in the agency's Green Parks Plan in 2010, was watered down the following year by Park Service Director Jon Jarvis to make water-filling stations "optional" for park superintendents.

As we noted Sunday, since the water-filling goal, which has transformed into an aspiration, was announced in 2010, just 22 parks have moved in that direction. There currently is no concerted push equal to the Wi-Fi drive to ban disposable plastic bottles and provide water-filling stations, though the Park Service has an "ultimate goal is to reduce the waste of disposable plastic water bottles as much as possible," spokesman Jeremy Barnum told the Traveler last week.

Of course, banning disposable water bottles won't entirely solve the problem with plastic litter in the parks. As long as soda and other flavored drinks continue to be sold in the parks in plastic containers, and as long as visitors tote cases of bottled water into the parks, there will be litter.

But the Park Service's focus on Wi-Fi, and apparent disinterest in the availability of water for visitors, is peculiar. On one hand, the agency is supportive of technology that in many ways can be disruptive to the national park experience, and yet on the other it seems to be giving short shrift to a key aspect of its Healthy Parks, Healthy People program; that is, enabling visitors to avoid dehydration on their park outings.

Now, this is not to diminish the value of having Internet access in the parks. NPS.gov has endless reams of content that can help interpret the parks to visitors. (Although, an experienced, outgoing interpretive ranger can do a much, much better job, and bookstores in the parks overflow with interpretive volumes!) So if parks must be wired, provide it in visitor centers, restaurants, and lodgings.

But shouldn't there be an equal, or even greater, interest in providing water to those visitors? We think so.