Park advocates need to rise up in support of the National Park System/NPS

During the past six months, the outlook for the National Park System has grown decidedly darker than it had been. Threats to the system's natural resources have grown with the Trump administration's attacks upon environmental regulations, proposed staffing cuts will be numbing if implemented, and there's a heightened prospect of creeping privatization.

Today, in the wake of the National Park Service's 2016 centennial and a record visitation of more than 330 million to the parks, there's an ominous trend of actions by the administration, which has a GOP-majority Congress to push them through, that would negatively impact the parks.

• The president's budget proposal calls for a $1.5 billion cut to the Interior Department, and a nearly $400 million cut to the National Park Service budget. Though the proposal is likely dead upon arrival, will park proponents in Congress be able to block any cuts made by appropriators?
• President Trump has directed the Interior Department to review, and possibly rescind, regulations pertaining to oil and gas drilling in units of the National Park System.
• The administration is looking to expand offshore energy development, something that could impact national seashores.
• In the coming weeks, there's the possibility that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will recommend changes in 27 national monuments that the president told him to review for their appropriateness.
• Interior Secretary Zinke has said he wants to turn management of campgrounds on public lands over to private companies, saying the Park Service is good at cleaning toilets, but not running campgrounds. What else might he be thinking of privatizing? Will he be open to pitches that the parks need more lodging? What is his reorganization plan for the National Park Service?
• President Trump wants Congress to repeal the Clean Water Act of 2015, which governs which streams and lakes are protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. Currently, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, "(M)ore than half of our 417 national park have waterways considered 'impaired' under the Clean Water Act, meaning they do not meet healthy water quality standards for activities like drinking, fishing and swimming."

Frequent readers of these pages are well aware of many, if not all, of these issues. But not everybody is.

In June I had the opportunity to stand in for Dr. Alfred Runte in Zion National Park to address groups from Tauck Tour's Spirit of The Desert: The National Parks of the Southwest tour, a 10-day trek through Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park organized with the help of Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan. My talk revolved around the many issues confronting the national parks today: Underfunding by Congress, extremely low morale, privatization, worker harassment issues, the maintenance backlog, crowding in the parks, and more.

Surprisingly, these issues were news to more than a few of those in the audience.

Park advocates need to be discussing these issues more often, and to an increasingly larger network of friends and associates. Congressional representatives should be reminded -- often -- of what the national parks mean to America and Americans. Letters are good, phone calls can be better, face-to-face the best. 

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Make no mistake, these are trying times for the National Park System.