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Maintenance Backlog

Returning To Paradise: Restoration And Deferred Maintenance

The National Park System has an almost $12 billion maintenance backlog. Of that backlog, $186 million belongs to Mount Rainier National Park. Contributing photographer Rebecca Latson recently visited Mount Rainier and reports on what kind of projects this national park plans for reducing that backlog while putting a personal face on the term "deferred maintenance."

Higher Fees Coming To Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore To Deal With Maintenance

Congress's inability to deal with the nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog in the National Park System is leading some parks to increase fees to help deal with their respective maintenance issues. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is one of the latest parks to increase fees, in part to address infrastructure needs.

Traveler Special Report: Tackling The National Park Service's Maintenance Backlog

Visitor and employee safety, transportation, access, and even historic structures all are being jeopardized by the nearly $12 billion backlog in maintenance work that reaches into nearly every corner, forest, and beach of the National Park System. During the past six months, National Parks Traveler's editors and writers have examined the issue of deferred maintenance and its impact on not just on how parks are enjoyed, but how their resources are being impacted.

Traveler Special Report: Lack Of Dollars Crippling National Park Facilities For Staff And Visitors

Craftsmanship flowed through the main building and surrounding cabins the Civilian Conservation Corps built above the Current River in the hill country of southeastern Missouri. But the passage of nearly nine decades has taken a toll on the Big Springs Lodge and Cabins at today's Ozark National Scenic Riverways, where the National Park Service shuttered the buildings four years ago until they could be rehabilitated.

Traveler Special Report: Optimism Growing That Congress Will Fund National Park Maintenance

With mid-term elections a small handful of weeks off, senators and congressmen up for election have less time than normal to work on passing legislation. And yet, groups anxious to see passage of a measure that would make a significant down payment on erasing the National Park System's roughly $12 billion deferred maintenance bill are optimistic it will happen by year's end.

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