...Underlying the beauty and serenity of our nation’s landscapes, a critical infrastructure network allows people from across the country and the world access to enjoy America’s national parks. But this infrastructure has been deteriorating over the years to a point where there now is an over $11 billion maintenance backlog for the NPS.
Infrastructure plays a larger role in our national parks than most people realize. The sheer amount and scale of assets owned by the NPS helps put the significant need to reduce the maintenance backlog in perspective. For instance, there are roughly 5,500 miles of paved roads in our parks (more public road miles than in the state of Hawaii), 1,700 bridges and tunnels (more than New York City), more than 17,000 miles of trails, and nearly 1,300 campgrounds. The NPS maintains more than 24,000 buildings (including over 500 visitor centers), 425 park lodges and hotel buildings, and 3,870 housing units all lit by more than 500 electrical systems. All of this is undergirded by 1,000 miles of water pipelines serving 1,500 water systems, 1,800 wastewater systems and 3,700 restrooms.
It’s obvious that the NPS’ infrastructure is massive. But much of it is languishing due to neglect, old age, and decades of misplaced priorities in Washington. We must do something to tackle this problem soon. With the recent NPS centennial spurring visitation, national parks are becoming more popular than ever, with 331 million visitors in 2017 alone.
...All sides agree that maintenance should be our top priority right now. That’s why Congress, the Department of the Interior, and the White House are coming together to support legislation to tackle this national challenge. After all, this isn’t a partisan issue; this is about prioritizing maintenance of the parks we all love and want to preserve for future generations.
Part of the solution is the creation of a dedicated fund that would draw a stable revenue stream from energy leases the federal government owns, as has been proposed in the President’s FY2019 budget. While some may object to using oil and gas leasing revenues to promote conservation, this isn’t a new idea. It has been a longstanding policy and priority of the United States to be good stewards of the revenues created by energy production to further conservation efforts. In fact, this is a similar type of funding method used in the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Before we do that, some questions need to be answered.
Over the same amount of time this maintenance backlog was accruing, how much was spent for land acquisition? Where would the backlog stand if all the money for land acquisition had been spent on maintenance? And how much of that $11 billion is attributed to these new acquisitions?
Shouldn't there be a trade off here? No moneys for acquisition until the backlog is met? After all, lands could still be acquired by exchange.
Further, we know there are many Parks that aren't really deserving of that designation. They are only there because a particular Rep. or Senator was in a powerful enough position to have them so designated. We have a BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission) to address this issue for military bases. Isn't it time we have a PRAC to review our national parks and monuments?
Congress should consider both of the above as part of any proposal to increase spending for our park system.
2 comments:
Those are excellent suggestions. I wish our Congressmen would consider them.
Excellant suggestions.
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