Funding, staff shortages threaten national parks

Five years out from its 100th anniversary, the National Park Service lacks funding for critical maintenance and staffing, imperiling the natural and cultural heritage found in America's "special places," watchdog groups and other observers contend. Nationwide, there is a nearly $11 billion maintenance backlog, about half of which agency officials consider "critical" — and the total shows no signs of lessening. Problems include craggy and washed out roads and visitor centers and other aging buildings with stressed electrical systems and worn out roofs. Shortfalls for staffing approach $600 million, according to an estimate by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy and watchdog group. Cultural resources, such as archeological and archival collections and historic structures, suffer from a lack of trained personnel to care for them, it says. "With too few park staff to watch over them, park prehistoric sites and battlefields are looted and destroyed, historic buildings are vandalized and museum collections are left to deteriorate," said the report, one of many by outside groups in recent years that have described park system problems...more

We can expect more of this kind of stuff as Congress and the Super Committee search for programs to "cut".