A former top National Park Service official implicated more than a decade ago for improperly paving the way for the owner of the Washington Redskins to cut down trees on a 2-acre scenic easement along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park is expected to become the agency's next acting director, possibly as soon as next week, National Parks Traveler has learned.
P. Daniel Smith, who retired in 2014 after 10 years as superintendent of Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia, will return to the Park Service on Monday as deputy director and then be named acting director, according to sources. Mike Reynolds, who has been acting director since Jon Jarvis retired a year ago, must relinquish the position as it was limited by a 300-day appointment.
April Slayton, the Park Service's assistant director for communications, would not immediately confirm the appointment but referred the matter to the Interior Department's communications staff. Heather Swift, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's spokeswoman, did not immediately reply Thursday morning to Traveler's inquiry on the matter.
Two sources, one inside the Park Service and one outside, told the Traveler of the pending appointment. An internal email obtained by the Traveler, from Lori K. Mashburn, the Interior Department's White House liaison, announced Mr. Smith's upcoming return to Interior.
Mr. Smith, at the time special assistant to then-NPS Director Fran Mainella, was found by the Interior Department's Inspector General to have "inappropriately used his position to apply pressure and circumvent NPS procedures" to permit Redskins owner Dan Snyder to have trees up to 6 inches wide at breast height on the easement cut down to improve the Potomac River view from his mansion.
According to the investigation by then-Inspector General Earl Devaney's staff, the Park Service failed to conduct the requisite environmental assessment as required by the NPS Director's Handbook before issuing the special user permit to Mr. Snyder.
Smith had become involved in the matter in 2002, according to the OIG report, and in 2004 called Chesapeake and Ohio Canal staff to say that, "Snyder was not happy with the pace of negotiations with NPS concerning the scenic easement."
"The C&O NHP Lands Coordinator admitted that after his conversation with Smith, he felt pressure to secure an agreement with Snyder," the report (attached below) added. "He related that he met with Smith at least twice after the call, once at Snyder's residence in June 2004 and another time on the C&O Canal towpath below Snyder's residence."
Caught up in the episode was Robert Danno, who was chief ranger at the historical park at the time and found himself maligned for raising the matter with superiors. A career Park Service ranger with an impressive resume, Mr. Danno seemingly was exiled by the agency for blowing the whistle on superiors who ignored well-established federal laws and agency policies and procedures in allowing a billionaire to chop down trees in a scenic easement.
He was busted from his chief ranger's position and, at one point, assigned to approving picnicking permits and, at another, given an office with virtually no tasks. He later reached an unspecified settlement with the Park Service and moved from Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, where he managed the battlefield's boundaries, to Montana to work at the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center.
Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, was disappointed that Secretary Zinke would bring Smith back into the Park Service.
"It is disturbing but perhaps indicative that the Trump people would resurrect a political hatchet man to take the helm at the National Park Service. In the Snyder-gate affair, Smith demonstrated a complete lack of respect for protecting park resources or for following established safeguards," Mr. Ruch said in an email Thursday. "It is also noteworthy that the IG investigators found Smith to be untruthful and that his mendacity prolonged the investigation at taxpayer expense – showing a troubling comfort level with alternative facts.
"Besides being a political-fixer, Smith also presided over a campaign of retaliation against the whistleblower, Chief Ranger Rob Danno, who reported the illegal tree-cutting to the IG. A recent survey of Interior employees found not only high rates of harassment but also reported retaliation," the PEER official added. "If promises by Secretary Zinke to change the culture of the Park Service are to be believed, then bringing in someone like Dan Smith is not only at cross-purposes but reinforces the very worst aspects of the deep dysfunctionality plaguing NPS."
President Trump has yet to nominate a permanent director for the Park Service. Interior staff have said a name was forwarded months ago but has yet to be acted upon.
After the tree-cutting episode, Mr. Smith was appointed superintendent of Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia. That park was in the news last year because of the Trump's administration's support and approval of Dominion Power's plan to erect a more than 7-mile-long line of transmission towers running near Historic Jamestowne and Colonial National Historical Park.
Mr. Smith was said to be against the transmission line.
Dominion Virginia Power maintains that its proposed Surry-Skiffes Creek-Whealton Transmission Line, which will cross the James River between Surry and James City counties with 300-foot-tall towers, is the best way to maintain a healthy power grid in the area. But groups including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Parks Conservation Association, and Preservation Virginia maintained there were less-damaging solutions that wouldn't need to span the river and invade the historic setting.
The Interior Department's position on the transmission line project changed when President Trump took office.
Mr. Jarvis, before retiring, had said in a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers that the project would cause "severe and unacceptable damage to this historically important area and the irreplaceable and iconic resources within it."
"Running power lines through the landscape where the earliest days of American history were written will forever change the ability of Americans to experience and understand our nation's earliest day," the letter also pointed out.
Comments
Good discussion.
I agree that Rob Danno was not treated fairly by the NPS and as someone who has been with the agency for 40 plus years it is a black eye and one we will never get rid of - ever! It demonstrates how an agency you give your heart and soul to can turn on you in a second. This agency has good people at all levels and it has its share of people who when push comes to shove will throw someone under the bus. Rob is an example of this happening. There are many many others
As far as the CHOH tree clearing issue I have a few points based on my reading of the IG report:
1. The park clearly should have initiated at least an EA off the bat it is not clear they did and if they had done this in a timely fashion I don't know if the Directors office would have even been involved.
2. The Region should have stepped up and provided the cover necessary for the park to complete its due diligence and told WASO to stand down - we got it! The Region should have insisted the NEPA process get initiated if it hadn't been and told Mr Snyder and the Director to let that process play out.
3. Any type of special assistant in the Directors Office or Secretary's Office plays the exact role that Smith played here. I am not saying he did everything right - I wasn't in the room - but in my opinion and based on experience, these special assistants come and go and they by and large defer to the parks/regions on these type of issues. i have never known one to play a role in disciplining employees.
4. The park and region just need to have their stuff together and let the compliance run its course and stick to the timeframe for the compliance. I believe most of the initial heat from people like Dan Snyder comes when the agency appears to be dragging its feet or not following a timeframe it has communicated.
5. Lastly, I don't know all that went down at CHOH 15 years ago. What I do know is there are always other factors and context to these types of issues that doesn't get covered or reported - even in IG reports! I just don't believe in destroying people or serving as the judge, jury and executioner - especially on public forums like this one. That is my primary point here.
i do believe Smith should be given a chance in his new position and based on my interaction with him and my knowledge of his perfromance at Colonial, I do believe he believes in the NPS mission. Maybe he has learned from any missteps he took on the CHOH issue?
Smith, along with many other NPS staff all the way up to the Director were the "tip of the spear" in confronting Dominion Power and Dominion's damaging transmission line project in Virginia The entire NPS and DOI were united in demanding a fully transparent EIS process from the Corps of Engineers for that project but no EIS ever happened. There were certainly offers of mitigation made by Dominion in the millions of dollars to the opponents of the line but none were accepted. The NPS wasn't for sale! As we know elections have consequences and DOI has now signed off on the project.
Smith was assigned by his boss, former NPS Director Fran Mainella, to give Dan Snyder special treatment for an unlawful act. Mainella herself had trouble remembering, under oath, holding a meeting with Snyder in the Redskins owner's skybox during a football game, before the unlawful permission was given. It doesn't take much imagination to connect the dots here. In my view, doing what you're told doesn't cut it when you're aware that you are breaking the law. The Inspector General's report should have ended the careers of Smith and several of the others who enabled this corrupt act, and destroyed the career of one of the National Park Service's best Rangers. Instead, nearly everybody who was complicit, including Smith, was promoted. I have heard from others that Daniel Smith's stint as Colonial Superintendent was less than stellar, and would be interested in other views which support or disagree with Daniel's.
It sounds as though Smith was just one more person being pressured from above to commit a wrongful act and lacking the courage to do what was right.
Smith was a political appointee who also worked in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife, & Parks. Like most political patronage appointees, his job was to please the administration and its donors/supporters, not necessarily act in a manner consistent with the policies and sometimes even the laws governing the agencies they work for. He became a career employee before the administration changed through the process commonly known as "burrowing in" I'm sure his thinking may have evolved during his 10 year stint as a NPS employee, but that is his background.
Daniel Smith should have been taken out of MIB in handcuffs. Now he is in charge of managing natural resources?
It is true that there often many sides to the same story. It is also true - depite active efforts to undermine this one immutable rule - that there are only one set of facts to any story.
Smith was at best a moral coward in one semi-important event which aside from the damage to the trees and the rule of law at C&O Canal, put at least one undeserving employee under the jackboot of the GWB Interior Department for many months. At worst he is the hatchet man many people believe him to be. For me, the former is enough to keep him retired. I guess for this administration that is a plus on a resume, instread of a minus. Again, aside from possible risks to the other resources the Service is called to protect I would not want my future as an employee in his hands if I had the misfortunate to step into unusual controversy, and anyone else who would is a fool.
What scares me most about this scenerio is that the swamp is growing larger, Zinke is a shill for Trump and now Smith is for Zinke. It is becoming clear to me that Zinke won't appoint a permanent Director until he dismantles the Obama-Jewell legacy. Zinke cannot have a sitting Director while he follows Trump's dictates. The Trump-Zinke swamp has now flooded our national parks.
Seems to me, like Trump a couple of months in, has had his chance to show what he does/can do. Leave him retired.
Once a political shill, absent a full acknowledgement and recant, is still a political shill.