With the National Park Service focused on "the enjoyment of the people," what's happening to the park system's resources?/NPS

As the partial government shutdown drags on towards its fourth week, so does the National Park Service's blackout on news regarding what's going on in the parks with most of the staff furloughed. When the government does get back to work, expect more than a few Freedom of Information Act requests filed concerning not just the decision-making regarding keeping the parks open, but what damage occurred.

Top National Park Service officials in Washington, D.C., are keeping a tight clamp on the flow of information. After I talked to David Smith, superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park, last week about resource damage in his park, he evidently was gagged by Washington.

"As you may know, the Washington office has instructed all park service employees — whenever we talk to the national media — to remind you that you need to submit your questions in advance to the Washington office for review," he told E&E News after they read our story and reached out to Smith. 

And when that filter is clamped on, the information flow slows to a trickle.

Last week came the decision to redirect Federal Land Recreation Enhancement Act funds, which Congress intended to be used for whittling away at the National Park System's estimated $11.6 billion maintenance backlog and enhancing the visitor experience, to pay for daily chores. That prompted our questions to NPS headquarters about how that decision will impact existing plans for FLREA revenues, how it might impact the battle with deferred maintenance, and whether parks that in the winter months see few visitors will lose FLREA funds they banked from last year's busy season to the now busy warm-weather parks. Those questions went unanswered.

The decision to divert FLREA funds, made by acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith, came after they realized the parks could not handle typical crowds with a skeleton workforce.

"As the lapse in appropriations continues into its third week, it has become clear that highly visited parks with limited staff have urgent needs that cannot be addressed under the original contingency plan that we implemented when the shutdown began," Deputy Director Smith, who also is the de facto acting Park Service director, wrote Friday in an all employees email. 

That email also answered one of our questions, about whether some parks might lose their FLREA funds to others.

"We have determined that parks that have available balances of 80% recreation fee funds may use them to provide immediate assistance to parks that were accessible at the beginning of the lapse in appropriations and have had to change that accessibility," he wrote. "These parks will begin to use those funds to address the maintenance and sanitation issues that have arisen in order to restore accessibility to areas that were accessible at the beginning of the lapse in appropriations.

"We will also develop a plan to utilize 20% funds for parks that do not charge fees or have insufficient available fee fund balances, but which were accessible at the beginning of the lapse and have had to curtail accessibility."

There was no mention of whether those diverted FLREA dollars would be reimbursed.

The goal from the top is to ensure the public can visit the parks. Whether resources are damaged, well, that happens. FLREA funds have not also been committed to addressing resource needs, such as continuing battles against things such as invasive species, whether vegetation or pythons. Those remain on hold. Also apparently swept to the side in favor of the public's enjoyment was Interior's priority, under recently departed Secretary Ryan Zinke, to make significant inroads to the maintenance backlog.

"There has been no public mention of using FLREA funds to cover anything other than visitor health and safety to keep more parks open," one Park Service employee told me. "Time-critical post-burn or invasive species treatments have not been on the radar in past shorter shutdowns, as delays of a few days can be made up for by allocating more staff to the task immediately after the shutdown. But for longer shutdowns, the fundamental mission of 'unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations' requires some specific resource management actions beyond resource protection from visitor impacts and vandalism."

Trying to keep the national parks open as if there were no partial shutdown is the Trump administration's attempt to try to deflect one of the negatives of the ongoing battle over the southern border wall.

The administration does not want you to know about Joshua trees being cut own, off-road vehicles going out-of-bounds into the Mojave Desert, or the possibility of wildlife problems arising from overflowing trash bins.

"It's obvious that DOI is getting nervous about negative stories," one superintendent told me. "Hence the full-court press to open facilities and areas closed since the shutdown, using fee money."

But with most park staff furloughed, and those on duty gagged by Washington or keeping their heads down so as not to draw attention to themselves, finding someone in the parks to discuss conditions is very challenging.

"During the lapse in appropriations the NPS has encouraged parks to continue to provide information on current conditions, health, and safety at parks as appropriate," Park Service Chief Spokesman Jeremy Barnum told me a dozen hours after I asked about the media blackout. "Parks have also been encouraged to provide the public updates on changes in accessibility and services at parks. Yosemite for example has provided detailed information during the lapse in appropriations on both its website and social media accounts.

"During the lapse in appropriations we are generally unable to accommodate interview requests except in cases of public safety, emergencies, etc.," added Barnum. "A majority of NPS/park employees have been furloughed. Those still on duty have focused on health and safety issues, law enforcement operations, and additional staff returning from furlough using FLREA funds are restoring access to recently closed park areas and restoring limited basic visitor services."

If you follow parks on Twitter or Facebook, a recurring message you'll see is that, "Emergency information may be shared on our Twitter or Facebook accounts, but we will not monitor the accounts or respond to questions. Call 911 for emergencies." One result of that messaging is that there's no back-and-forth, whether it's a park visitor with a question or a reporter looking for information on actual conditions in the park.

One sign that damage is occurring -- either indirectly or intentionally -- was news the other day that the National Park Foundation has "set up the Parks Restoration Fund to help repair parks as quickly as possible once the government reopens."

"Once the government reopens and rangers have determined what needs to be done, this fund will help repair damage where it’s needed most," said Foundation President Will Shafroth.

That begs the question of what damage, outside of what we know from Joshua Tree, has already occurred? Unfortunately, the Interior Department doesn't want you to know. Not only is the agency refusing to accept Freedom of Information Act requests during the shutdown, but between Christmas and New Year's Day it quietly published a proposed rule change to how it handles FOIA requests. 

As proposed, the change would require those filing FOIAs to be more specific in what they're asking for, restricting the number of requests a group or individual could file in a month, and giving Interior more discretion in deciding how quickly to act on the requests. Therein lies the catch. If you don't know specifically what damage occurred, how could you seek information about it?

Congress long has been responsible for holding the National Park System in trust for the American people, and seeing that they're adequately cared for. The parks should not be political pawns, and Park Service staff should be allowed to accurately describe how the parks and their resources are being treated.