Examples of commercial cellular facilities on NPS land/OIG

An investigation into cell tower installations in national parks has found not only that the National Park Service doesn't know how many of the installations exist across the National Park System, but that the agency is either overcharging or undercharging right-of-way and cost recovery fees.

More so, the report from the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General noted that in some cases the Park Service was unable to prove that it followed the required National Environmental Policy Act steps when processing commercial permits for the needed rights-of-way. In some cases, parks did not obtain approval from their regional director before approving commercial right-of-way permits for towers, the report added.

"The root problem is a Park Service embrace of cellular coverage without any critical analysis, outsourcing its resource protection role to the telecom industry,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which called for the investigation. “In short, the IG found that the Park Service is illegally subsidizing the telecom industry to the detriment of the parks.”    

Since 1996 the Park Service has been issuing right-of-way permits for cell tower installations. As part of the permitting process, the Park Service is required by NEPA to provide for a public comment period on the proposed installations. Additionally, cellular companies are required to pay land-use fees and cover the Park Service costs for processing the permits.

However, OIG "found that the NPS did not consistently receive fair market value for commercial cellular facilities and needed to improve its collection and accounting of ROW revenues. Specifically, we found that the NPS did not always collect the correct revenues and did not ensure the correct amounts were deposited into the U.S. Treasury."

Among the examples cited by the OIG:

* Yosemite National Park had commercial cellular facilities operating under special use permits that were not converted to ROW permits when the special use permits expired. We estimate that YOSE did not collect approximately $477,000 in land use fees because it did not convert special use permits to ROW permits in a timely manner. After the conversion, YOSE also did not send bills for collection and relied on ROW permit holders to send the correct land use fees owed to the park. Because accurate bills for collection were not issued, some commercial cellular facilities that converted to ROW permits paid fees for both a special use permit and a ROW permit in 2017, when only one type of fee should have been collected for each site.

* At Everglades National Park (EVER) and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SAMO), we found instances of commercial cellular facilities operating without an NPS ROW permit. At EVER, ROW permits were not issued for individual antennas attached to already permitted cellular towers. As a result, EVER is not collecting land use fees, which translates to lost revenues for the U.S. Treasury. We were unable to determine the amount lost because EVER could not provide us with the appraisal that would have been part of the permitting process. An appraisal would need to be performed as part of issuing a ROW permit for the antennas.

* At SAMO, we could not determine the authority for all 17 unpermitted commercial cellular facilities on WASO’s inventory.

"Several of the parks we visited retained moneys for cost recovery without any support documentation, and so we could not determine whether cost recovery retained by the parks was justified," the investigators noted. "For example, at Grand Teton National Park and Yosemite, land use fees and cost recovery were deposited into the same account as other special use permit revenues. Both Grand Teton and Yosemite did not have support documentation for the cost recovery retained at the parks for commercial ROW permits. We therefore were unable to determine the amount of labor and any related costs that NPS staff spent administering ROW permits for commercial cellular facilities vs. the amount of labor and related costs spent on other special use permits.

"In other words, we could not conclude that the appropriate amount for cost recovery was retained at these parks because the parks could not provide support for the amounts retained. If the parks overcharged for cost recovery, the effect could be a reduction in the amounts that should have been deposited into the U.S. Treasury."

Investigators also determined that the Park Service's inventory of commercial celluar facility permits was unreliable. Personnel at the agency's Washington headquarters "told us (they) believed the list was incomplete and could not guess at the accuracy of the regional input."

To that point, the OIG found commercial installations at both Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in California and Acadia National Park in Maine that were not listed on the Park Service's inventory. Another 42 installations were listed in the inventory, but they had not been permitted, and 26 installations were under expired permits that might have needed to be renewed, the investigators wrote.

"Without an accurate inventory, the NPS has no assurance that all commercial cellular facilities are accounted for and managed in accordance with (Park Service regulations), which require(s) a NEPA determination as part of the ROW permitting process," the investigators stated. "As such, (Park Service headquarters) cannot provide oversight to be sure that the correct revenues are being collected and deposited into the U.S. Treasury and that federal land is protected through the NEPA requirements."

The Park Service agreed with OIG's findings and said it was implementing the recommendations made so it could better track these installations and assess the proper fees.

“The problems that PEER found at Yosemite are being repeated today at other parks, such as Grand Teton and Yellowstone,” said Pacific PEER Director Jeff Ruch, also noting that the Park Service made no indication that it would correct the past errors. “Until the Park Service shows that it will hold its managers to account for violating the law and agency rules we can expect these violations to continue.”