A $12 million jazz museum. Marketing the parks for a specific industry. Installing composting toilets. These are some of the centennial projects that the National Park Service believes will "add sparkle to America's 'Crown Jewels.'" Am I the only one wondering how?

It's no secret that I've been troubled by the National Park Service's seemingly quick reliance on the private sector to preserve historic buildings on its properties. The agency's ongoing efforts to allow a private developer to lease three dozen buildings at Fort Hancock in Gateway National Recreation Area are being done in the name of preservation. Yet there are parks that are managing restoration without resorting to privatization.

It's been a year since a 45-foot-wide, 2,000-foot-long trench was blazed, without permission, through a portion of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to lay utility lines for a commercial development. And still the government has not taken any action against the developers. To call attention to this, a candlelight vigil is planned for August 17th at the park.

For more than a century the United States has been in the national park business, and for nearly a century the National Park Service has been guided in managing those parks by the National Park Service Organic Act. Some groups, though, question whether another road map of sorts, a declaration of principles, should also be referred to when managing the parks.