FAQ
Some Frequently Asked Questions About the National Park System:
Click on the question for which you would like an answer or scroll down the page to see all the questions.
Q: What is the National Park System?
Q: What is the Mission of the National Park Service?
Q: Does the National Park Service Organic Act Contain an Inherent Conflict and Contradiction?
Q: How big is the National Park System?
Q: What was America’s first National Park?
Q: What is the largest park in the National Park System?
Q: What is the smallest park in the National Park System?
Q: Why aren’t all the parks in the system called "National Parks?"
Q: Have any parks in the National Park System been abolished?
Q: How does something get to be a part of the National Park System?
Q: Will the National Park System continue to grow?
Q: Who appoints the Director of the National Park Service?
Q: Who supervises the Director of the National Park Service?
Q: How many people work for the National Park Service?
Q: What is the budget of the National Park Service?
Q: Do you, Dwight, have a favorite park?
Q: What is the National Park System?
A: The short answer is that the National Park System is all the parks, historic sites, and other areas and units administered by the National Park Service, a bureau established in 1916 in the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Today there are 391 units that make up the System, ranging from individual historic buildings on less than one acre to large natural and wilderness areas containing millions of acres. In truth, however, the term "System" is something of a misnomer, because there never has been a grand plan or pattern underlying all of the 391 park units administered by the Park Service. The System started with a handful of sites transferred to the National Park Service at the time of its creation in 1916. No long-range plan, no mission statement or articulation of ideals has ever existed within which to consider the addition of new park units. For all of its history the National Park System has been essentially an improvisation.
Over the years the System has simply "grown like Topsy," some say, as Congress and the President have created each new unit. The first time the word "System" was used in describing the parks we have today was probably in 1918, by the man who would become the second Director of the National Park Service, Horace M. Albright. Albright is credited with having written the first statement containing criteria for new parks, and in it he referred to the "national park system" collectively.
However, in 1918, two years after creation of the National Park Service, three National Parks were not under the jurisdiction of the bureau responsible for the system. They were Abraham Lincoln National Park, Kentucky, now Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Site [administered by the War Department until 1933]; Lassen Volcanic National Park, California [administered by the Department of Agriculture until 1933] ; and Fort McHenry National Park, Maryland, now Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine [also administered by the War Department until 1933.]
Growth of the National Park System has happened unevenly, with more sites joining the System when we have had a President who felt keenly about the Nation's heritage and the conservation of land and resources. Among those Presidents have been Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. The largest additions to the System were made by President Jimmy Carter, when he sought to resolve long-standing controversies over the parks in Alaska. Most of the changes made by President Carter involved use of his Executive authority when Congress could not agree on pending legislation about the Alaska lands. Congress subsequently passed legislation that had the effect of ratifying President Carter's Executive actions, and at the same time added even more land to the National Park System. President George W. Bush proclaimed a new National Monument on February 27, 2006: African Burial Ground National Monument (N.Y.) On the same date Congress created the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site, D.C. (Public Law 108-192.) The latest addition to the National Park System is Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site near Eads, Colo. (Public Law 106-465.)
For more about the growth of the System, see Chapter One, "The National Park System," in my book.
Q: What is the Mission of the National Park Service?
A: The Mission of the National Park Service is spelled out in several pieces of legislation, beginning with the Organic Act of 1916 that created the National Park Service.
Briefly, that law provides the "fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments and reservations…is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Q: Does the National Park Service Organic Act Contain an Inherent Conflict and Contradiction?
A: Some people have argued that the language about providing for the enjoyment of the parks while preserving them unimpaired involves an inherent conflict--a dual, not single focused mission. A scholarly study of the subject was made by the late Yale University History Professor and one-time member of the National Park System Advisory Board Robin W. Winks in which he concluded that:
" . . . the language contained in the preamble to the National Park Service Act of 1916 is not, in fact, contradictory and that Congress did not regard it as contradictory; that to the extent that a contradictory interpretation can be imputed to the sentence to the preamble quoted in the Introduction to this paper, that contradiction can be eliminated by reference to the printed record of Congress at the time, to the private papers of those individuals most directly responsible for framing the language of the act, and to the prevailing canons of rhetoric in 1916. Further, it is argued that subsequent legislation, and numerous interpretations of related legislation by the courts (taking water as a resource by way of example) sustain the view that there was and is no inherent contradiction in the preamble to the Act of 1916. The National Park Service was enjoined by that act, and the mission placed upon the Service was reinforced by subsequent acts, to conserve the scenic, natural, and historic resources, and the wild life found in conjunction with those resources, in the units of the National Park System in such a way as to leave them unimpaired; this mission had and has precedence over providing means of access, if those means impair the resources, however much access may add to the enjoyment of future generations."
See: Robin W. Winks, The National Park Service Act of 1916: "A Contradictory Mandate?", 74 Denver University Law Review 575 (1997).
Q: How big is the National Park System?
A. There are today some 391 units of the National Park System located in 49 States (Delaware has none), plus Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Guam. They embrace approximately 84 million acres, much of it carved from the original public domain, which were chiefly the lands acquired by the Louisiana Purchase (in 1803 for $15 million) and the purchase of Alaska from Russia (in 1867 for $7.2 million). The public domain lands were already owned by the Federal Government, thus requiring no land acquisition from private parties or local governments when they were withdrawn for park purposes.
National Park System units in the eastern States (where there was little or no public domain) have been greatly assisted by private philanthropy, including large parts of Acadia National Park (Maine), Shenandoah National Park (Virginia), and the Blue Ridge Parkway (Virginia and North Carolina.) Most of the Civil War Battlefields have been acquired bit by bit over the years as urban and suburban developments have threatened to engulf them. At the present time a special effort is underway to identify and preserve threatened remnants of battlefields using a variety of acquisition and management tools.
There is also a collection of sites called "Affiliated Areas," that are vaguely related to the National Park System in a variety of ways. They include several memorials, some so-called heritage areas, and several historic sites, among others. Some receive or have in the past received federal financial support, others have not. Two areas now part of the National Park System began their existence as Affiliated Areas: Ebeys Landing National Historic Reserve in Washington State and Steamtown National Historic Site in Pennsylvania. Sometimes the designation has been used as a sort of "parking lot" for areas created by Congress, but which the National Park Service either did not want or did not know what to do with. The term "Affiliated Areas" is an administrative artifact, not a term defined in law. A 2001 compilation of National Park System areas lists 27 Affiliated Areas. More information is available about this somewhat confusing category of sites in my book, in which I devote all of Chapter 3 to that subject.
By comparison, the National Forest System, created in 1905 and administered by the U.S. Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture includes some 296 areas embracing about 191 million acres of federally owned lands. Most National Forest lands outside the eastern U.S. were also carved from the public domain. About 25 million acres in the eastern States were acquired by various means.
The National Wildlife Refuge System, administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior, includes some 520 refuges (and certain other sites) embracing about 93 million acres.
To confuse matters, the U.S. Forest Service (in the Department of Agriculture) and the Bureau of Land Management (in the Department of the Interior) also administer several areas labeled "National Monuments." These National Monuments were created on existing federally owned lands, primarily to have the effect of withdrawing the lands from some forms of private acquisition or land use.
Other federally owned lands also part of the original public domain are administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Almost all of these lands are west of the 100th Meridian. Historically, the lands administered by BLM have been principally used for the grazing of livestock, some others having values for their forests or recreational resources. Sometimes new National Monuments are created on lands in the care of BLM.
Both the National Forests and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are often characterized as "multiple use" lands, meaning they have values or uses involving more than one purpose--such as harvesting timber, providing wildlife habitat, and supporting outdoor recreation. The term "multiple use" is often used in a negative way, intended to distinguish these lands from those administered by the National Park Service. Such characterization implies lands in the National Park System are "single use," and therefore have less public value. People unsympathetic to the idea of National Parks often characterize park lands as "locked up" or "unavailable for public use." When such terminology is used, it is worth asking what specific use the person has in mind. If it means no public hunting or drilling for oil in National Parks or no collecting fossils in the parks, the person may be right in those instances. Uses that would potentially "impair" the values protected in a park are deliberately not permitted. However, in truth, areas of the National Park System also serve multiple purposes such as: the preservation of wildlife habitat, protection of watershed areas, preservation of a historic building or site or artifact, and preservation of outstanding scenery or vistas, and many forms of outdoor recreation. Some of these purposes can be served at the same time on the same land, thereby also being "multiple use" lands.
Q: What was America= s first National Park?
A: Most people mark the beginning of the National Park System with creation of Yellowstone National Park (Wyo., Mont., and Idaho) in 1872. Indeed, it was the first park bearing the designation "National Park." However, the earliest units that would later be part of the National Park System included the National Capital Parks in Washington, D.C. (1790); the National Mall and the White House (1790); Ford= s Theatre (1866), all three also in Washington, D.C.; and 12 National Cemeteries (1863-1870.)
Three other sites that eventually became part of the system were set aside from the public domain before Yellowstone:
(1) The Naval Live Oaks Reservation in Florida was set aside in 1819 to provide a source of live oak and red cedar timbers for the Navy. There is no evidence the lands were actually ever used for that purpose and they are now part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, which was created in 1971.
(2) The Hot Springs Reservation in what is now the town of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was withdrawn from the public domain in 1832. The Reservation was renamed Hot Springs National Park in 1921.
(3) Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove were transferred to the State of California in 1864 for park purposes, but the lands were ceded back to the U.S. government in 1906 and added to Yosemite National Park which had been established in 1890.
Between 1872 and creation of the National Park Service in 1916 thirty-six areas were set aside by Congress and the President in units that would become part of the National Park System. Before creation of the Park Service, the A parks@ were variously under the care of the General Land Office in the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the War Department, and a special office set up for that purpose in the District of Columbia government. A major reorganization in 1933 transferred most of the then-existing National Monuments, cemeteries, and battlefields to the National Park Service.
Q: What is the largest park in the National Park System?
A. The largest park in the System is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska. The park was first declared a National Monument by President Carter in 1978 and later designated a National Park by Congress in 1980. The park is some 8.3 million acres. Adjoining the National Park is a National Preserve, created on the same schedule, having the same name, and containing over 4.8 million acres. These two areas are 2 to 4 times the 2.2 million acres in Yellowstone National Park (Wyo., Mont., and Idaho), the largest park in the Lower 48.
Q: What is the smallest park in the National Park System?
A: Several parks in the System are one acre or less. They include five sites in New York City; Castle Clinton National Monument, Federal Hall National Memorial, General Grant National Memorial, Hamilton Grange National Memorial, and Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site. Two sites are in the District of Columbia: Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, and Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site. The others are the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site (Mass.), and Thaddeus Kosciuzko National Memorial (Pa.).
Q: Why aren= t all the parks in the system called A National Parks?@
A: There are over twenty separate designations comprising the nomenclature of the National Park System: National Parks, National Monuments, National Memorials, National Recreation Areas, National Preserves, National Historic Sites, National Battlefields, and so forth. The designations are not used according to a rigid set of rules. Names were added from time to time to the park lexicon in part to distinguish one area from another, or to afford a name to an entirely new type of park. For example, National Preserves have many of the characteristics of National Parks (several National Preserves adjoin National Parks), in that they contain a wide variety of resources and are generally large in size. National Preserves, however, typically permit hunting, a no-no in National Parks. Some kinds of mineral extraction, including oil and gas, are permitted in National Preserves, but not in National Parks. As the National Park Service has entered into novel management arrangements in areas whose preservation is sought without acquisition of federal land, new designations have been invented. For example, such areas may be termed A Heritage Areas@ or have similar designations. As such arrangements become more complex and routine, added terminology may be developed to accommodate the changes.
Differing designations often imply that some uses are permitted and others forbidden, though that rule is not uniform throughout the system. In recent years there has been a move to change the name of an existing "National Monument" to "National Park." The reasoning behind such changes--always made by Congressional action--is that the latter term may serve to increase visitation and thereby economic activity in and around the park. I do not know of any direct evidence such a name change has such effects.
Chapter Two of my book is devoted to the subject of "Typecasting the Parks," a subject both more important and more interesting than many people would imagine.
A: Most units of the National Park System were created by formal Acts of Congress. That is true of all units having the label A National Park,@ but it is also true of many other parks having a different nomenclature, such as National Monuments, National Historic Sites and others. In such legislation Congress would determine the boundaries of the park and specify various conditions attached to the designation. For example, all National Parks forbid sport hunting, while permitting sport fishing. [As I observed in my book: For reasons unclear to me, most people do not afford fish a place in the animal kingdom as valued as mammals or birds. Many dictionaries do not include fish in the definition of 'animal.' Fish occupy a niche in the ecology that is in no way less significant than any other large group of living creatures. National Park Service policies regarding fishing in the National Parks are clearly at odds with its mission to preserve other species and prevent their 'harvesting' for sport by the public.]
Other areas created or designated by Congress include National Preserves, Battlefields, National Memorials, and wild and scenic rivers. All told there are more than 20 categories of areas in the national park system. In most cases the designation signals to the public something about the nature of the resource and some of the uses to which it may be put.
The other major way in which sites may be added to the system is by Presidential proclamation. This route has had its ups and downs since passage of the Antiquities Act in 1906. This law gave the President authority to ". .declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and objects of historic or scientific interest situated upon lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments.@ The law was first used by President Theodore Roosevelt to create Petrified Forest and Devils Tower National Monuments, and to begin a long process of saving parts of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. The Antiquities Act has been used by more than a dozen presidents to create national monuments, as recently as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Parks created by Executive Order of the President ultimately receive Congressional sanction through the processes associated with appropriating funds for their operation and management. On rare occasions Congress has held up activation of parks by not funding them. The purse strings held by Congress are an important vehicle by which Congress works its will on the National Park System, sometimes negatively, but normally in positive ways.
Q: Have any parks in the National Park System been abolished?
A. Sixty-eight areas once part of the system are no longer part of the system. These divested sites range from quite small to several thousands of acres. Some of them were transferred to another agency, and some to a State government, and a few returned to private ownership.
The largest group of sites no longer in the system were so-called National Recreation Demonstration Areas. These were all created in the 1930s from sub-marginal forest and farmlands. The concept was that they would be developed by the federal government and subsequently turned over to the States in which they were located. That has happened and today most of the NRDAs are part of State park systems, some of them made much larger by further additions by the States. All in all there were 45 NRDAs embracing about 397,056 acres. Thirty-two of them were transferred to the States, accounting for basically half of the sites no longer part of the system; the rest of the NRDAs were absorbed into the National Park System..
Other parks no longer in the system, and not brought into the System with the intention of transferring them to the States, have to be explained one-by-one, because the circumstances surrounding each are unique. Here is a sample:
Fossil Cycad National Monument (South Dakota), 1922-56, 320 acres. Set aside in 1922 to protect a deposit of fossil cycads, a palm-like evergreen bearing large cones believed to be the most primitive form of seed bearing plants from the Permian Period. The site was never afforded any on-site protection and between 1922 and the 1950s amateur and professional fossil hunters cleaned the site of all recoverable fossils. The lands were returned to the public domain, where they are now administered by the Bureau of Land Management for grazing and other non-public uses.
Georgia O= Keeffe National Historic Site (New Mexico.) In 1980 three acres including her home and studio, were donated to the National Park System by the artist. The Historic Site was authorized but then deauthorized in 1983 before it was formally established due to local opposition generated by a draft management plan for the site done by the National Park Service (with the artist's participation.) The site is now owned by a private foundation bearing the artist's name. It is open to limited public visitation.
Mackinac National Park (Michigan), 1875-95, about 1,000 acres, was the second National Park in the U.S., and was managed by the War Department. The park was transferred to the State of Michigan in 1895 because the Army proposed to abandon the island= s fort, thereby leaving no one to care for the park. Today the State park is about the same size as in 1895.
Mar-a-Lago National Historic Site (Florida), 1972-80, 17 acres, is the estate of cereal heiress Marjorie Meriweather Post. Mar-a-Lago is grandiose. Completed in 1927 the main house has 118 rooms, including 17 bedrooms, and is dominated by a 75-foot tower overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth. Long disparaged and neglected by the National Park Service, no uniformed NPS person ever served there and no plan was ever developed for the site. With on-again-off-again Congressional support, the site was divested for a complex of reasons, including the Park Service= s vigorous wish not to have it. The site is now owned by real estate magnate Donald Trump and has been turned into a private club. The details of this divestiture are contained in Chapter 5 of my book.
Papago-Saguaro National Monument (Arizona), 1914-30, 2,050 acres, is a city and state park and Arizona National Guard installation.
In addition, Congress created the Oklahoma City National Memorial in 1997, then de-listed it in 2004.
Other sites no longer part of the National Park System are listed and described in Appendix 4 of my book and at the link below.
The potential divestiture of existing units of the National Park System is a "sword of Damocles" hanging over the System. In the mid-1990s legislation (H.R. 260) was introduced that would have created a special commission with the responsibility to "review" the System and recommend parks for divestiture. The legislation was eventually killed, but the concept remains in the minds of people not supportive of the System's integrity.
For more on this subject CLICK HERE, and see my book and the discussion below.
Q: How does something get to be a part of the National Park System?
A: The circumstances surrounding each park becoming part of the National Park System are often as different as the parks themselves. In general it happens this way: someone or a group gets the idea such-and-such should be a part of the National Park System. They organize locally and try to develop a broad base of support for the idea. When they think they= ve got a head of steam, they approach their local Member of Congress (or Members if the site is in two or more Congressional Districts) and try to get his or her support. Or they may approach one or both of the State= s SenatorsBBboth is always better, especially if they= re from different parties. Or, ideally, park proponents will seek support in both the House and Senate at the same time.
Interestingly, park proposals almost never originate in the National Park Service. Contrary to urban legend, the Park Service is not much interested in expanding its domain, often opposing (especially) unique and new ideas or types of parks. The National Park Service has often been a reluctant bride when it comes to enlarging the National Park System.
If the idea catches on, either a House Member or a Senator or both will introduce a Bill calling for the site to become a park. The Bill will be referred to the appropriate substantive committee or committees. In reality, many parks are proposed, few are even given a hearing, and even fewer end up part of the system. Literally hundreds of parks never get beyond being proposed in a Bill for which a Member of Congress usually gets brownie points, even if the whole idea had only marginal utility in the first place.
This step is the one that Aauthorizes@ a park. Funding and staffing of a park only comes after a park has been authorized. Appropriations pass through an entirely different process associated with the budget proposed by the President. Parks have been authorized but not immediately funded. Sometimes the President does not request money for a new parkB perhaps a park he didn't support in the first place. And sometimes Congress provides the money anyway. To further confuse the topic, Congress has actually created parks through the appropriations process, bypassing the substantive Committees completely, though this route is very rare.
If the Chairman agrees, he will call a hearing or hearings, at which interested people testify, both pro and con. The Secretary of the Interior (usually the Director of the National Park Service representing that office) also testifies, giving the Administration= s position on the Bill.
At this stage the National Park Service is often asked or directed to make a professional field study of the site to confirm or deny its national Asignificance and suitability@ for addition to the National Park System. Many such reports done by NPS end up recommending against the proposal. Sometimes that kills the whole idea, sometimes it sends its supporters back to the drawing board to change the proposal, such as making the park smaller, changing allowable uses, or other details. If a revised concept garners support, it can be re-introduced in Congress and the process starts all over again. It sometimes takes several years and multiple tries before something is added to the System. Many proposals never succeed.
Ironically, the Administration in power often recommends against the Bill, usually on the grounds that the site lacks the necessary significance or because the resource involved is already well represented in the system. The Administration often A loses@ the argument and the site is eventually added to the system.
Almost always someone objects and will not support the proposal, sometimes for economic reasons, sometimes because the site will cause someone in particular to be Aharmed,@ sometimes for ideological reasons (for example: all additions to the federal estate are a bad idea), and any of many other reasons. Supporters will testify is it the best thing since sliced bread, though they may suggest amendments to clarify the proposal, enlarge it, shrink it, or attach special conditions to its approval. For something like twenty years park proposals have often contained language forbidding the use of eminent domain; all land to be acquired must come from Awilling sellers.@
A further word about the use of eminent domain: in the case of parks it is used only rarely. If that process is used the acquisition must necessarily go to court. That process will also set the value of the property and the sum of money that must be paid to the owner for it. Many land acquisitions involving "willing sellers" also go to court for the determination of value. In many such cases land value is determined by a jury--something that almost always has the effect of raising (sometimes substantially) the amount of money paid for the land.
The Committee (both the House and Senate, usually serially) will report out a Bill, often containing changes made by the Committee. The Bill will be debated and voted upon by each of the Houses of Congress, then differences between the Bills passed by the House and Senate will be negotiated by a Conference Committee, following which the compromise Bill will go back to each House for another vote. If approved, the Bill is sent to the President. The President can sign the Bill or veto it. Vetoes of park Bills are so rare I cannot think of one.
After the Bill becomes law it is sent to the Secretary of the Interior for implementation. Sometimes actual creation of a park is held up (sometimes for years) because no money has been appropriated to administer the site. Once money is available, the Park Service will begin land acquisition, if required, and at some stage will actually put staff on the ground and eventually open the site to public use and visitation. This implementation process can take only a few months or several years. Land acquisition always slows down the process.
The process sounds confusing to people outside government, but the process basically follows the same steps applicable to all federal projects. The process is time-tested and offers numerous occasions during its course for public involvement. Parks are subject to the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Environmental Impact Statements are routine. However, decisions about adding something to the National Park System are essentially political in character, sometimes to the chagrin of professionals inside and outside the National Park Service who are either for or against a specific proposal on A professional@ or A expert@ grounds.
NPS has not only opposed a variety of additions to the System on grounds of significance or suitability (some of which are now in the System), but various professionals in the National Park Service have from time to time advocated both privately and publicly divesting certain existing parks on such grounds. Some people neither past nor present NPS employees claim to be strong supporters of the National Park System, but nevertheless advocate various formats for "reviewing" the parks and shedding those that are deemed unworthy of staying in the System. The rationale for such actions is today often based on the perception that the parks are so devoid of funds that it is no longer possible to manage them to an acceptable standard of excellence--therefore turn them over to someone else. It is, of course, unlikely that someone else would not find it equally difficult to finance or manage the divested sites.
When I was writing my book in the mid-1990s legislation was pending in Congress (H.R. 260) to create a special commission whose purpose would be to recommend divestiture of parks they deemed should not remain in the System, in a process very similar to the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) Commission used to close military bases. Fortunately, the Bill died, though on one occasion it was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives, being on the so-called Consent Calendar. The concept, however, did not die and may raise its ugly head at some propitious time in the future. The concept of purging the National Park System of sites deemed unworthy is, unfortunately, not limited to people opposed to the entire idea of National Parks. Well meaning people may (for example) believe that if the total size of the System were reduced, more resources would be available for the remaining parks. It seems to me to be quite unrealistic wishful thinking that the Congress would continue to appropriate money and authorize staff for parks no longer in the System . Indeed, it is entirely possible that the only terms by which another government agency, federal-state-or-local, would agree to accept a park would be to not only transfer the park but also the money and staff to operate it.
At the time H.R. 260 was being considered and continuing to the present time, a variety of NPS professionals drew up A hit lists@ of parks they thought ought to be divested. I collected hit lists from more than three dozen staff members, including then-Superintendents, Regional Directors, and senior Washington Office officials, with the original intention of publishing the lists in my book. It was obvious that such lists end up being highly idiosyncratic, reflecting each individual=s professional background, experience, and perspective. The lists collectively included far more than half the units in the System. At that time the then-Chairman of the House Subcommittee having oversight of the National Park System asserted he had a list of over 150 parks he wanted to divest. The Congressman was not re-elected in the November 2006 elections.
A former Director of the National Park Service is among those who believes the quality of parks has been compromised by the addition of some areas he thinks are unworthy. He refers to it as "thinning the blood."
I did not publish any list, regarding it unwise to give them the dignity of publication, though the shock-'n-awe value might have awakened a lot of people to the inherent vulnerability of the National Park System, particularly in a political environment that holds little respect for all government and for our national common wealth.
My belief is that many of the Park Service professionals who invented hit lists in the past now share my view that once the process of divestiture starts, once present or future Congresses or Administrations begin second guessing earlier decisions by Congress or the President, there will be no end to it. Given any opportunity there are forces that would compromise the System for many reasons: during World War II there were proposals to log off old growth cedar from parks in the Pacific Northwest when aircraft were still made out of wood (and shortly to be made of aluminum); today President George W. Bush advocates oil and gas exploration and development on virtually all federal lands where such activity is not specifically prohibited by law. At one time there was a proposal to tap geothermal energy from lands adjoining Yellowstone National Park, under conditions geologists could not guarantee would not harm the thermal systems in the park. In 2005 a California Congressman actually put in writing a proposal to sell off 15 units of the National Park System for cash, to help finance the federal deficit. Fortunately, a massive public outcry killed the proposal--at least for now.
The parks ought to have permanent protection analogous to our Constitution--yes, that permanent shielded from all forms of encroachment and second-guessing previous Congressional or Presidential actions. Future generations will applaud our determination to protect their legacy.
Another rationale for maintaining the integrity of the National Park System is one of inter-generational equity. For example, our generation has set aside sites and resources (through the respective Congress or President) we believe merit preservation according to the our values, our tastes, and our motivations. For subsequent generations, our children or grandchildren for example, to abolish or de-list any of those earlier sites is a generational slap in the face for judgments made in our time. The same principle applies to each former generation and each one to follow our own. We need to respect the history and values of our forebears if we expect our progeny and their successors to honor and respect ours.
No unit of the National Park System should ever be abolished. Period.
My rationale for opposing any and all divestitures is spelled out in more detail in my book, to which I refer readers who may be interested.
Q. Will the National Park System continue to grow?
A. Yes, in all probability the National Park System will continue to grow. At the time my book was published in 1995, there were 365 units in the System. As this is written in 2008 there are 391.
One reason the System grows is because as a Nation we are becoming more sensitive to the preservation of our cultural heritage.
For example, in 1994 the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park (La.) was created by Congress and in 1996 New Bedford [Mass.] Whaling National Historical Park was added to the System, again by Congress. In 2002 Congress created the Flight 93 National Memorial at the site of the crash in Pennsylvania of one of the planes involved in the September 11, 2001, tragedy. The latest addition to the National Park System is Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site near Eads, Colo.
The present push to save bits and pieces of Civil War battlefields threatened by urban and suburban growth is a good example. In addition, over the years buildings associated with a person, event, or idea take on new lasting significance as people who died years ago are memorialized in some tangible way. The Park Service believes such memorialization should not be undertaken until fifty years after a person's death, giving history time to assess the long-term significance of the person or event. However, sites associated with each of our Presidents have become expected, in part as locations for their permanent libraries.
Large natural areas still exist, albeit chiefly in the western States, that can garner support for addition to the protections afforded by National Park System status. Mojave National Preserve in southern California created in 1994 is one example. Several wilderness areas in Utah are also viewed as having Park System significance. President Clinton sought to use his Executive authority to designate such areas, part of which has been undone or placed in limbo during the Bush Administration.
In the Midwest concepts exist for creation of a larger park to preserve the remnant tallgrass prairie. An existing tallgrass park is only marginally large enough to preserve this remarkable species of grass that once covered millions of square miles in America's heartland. Tallgrass can grow high enough to hide a man on horseback. I also recently read of a proposal to create a similar prairie park for the so-called short grass areas further to the south.
In the eastern States natural areas meriting addition to the National Park System are few and far between. There is some nascent support for the addition of lands in the Chesapeake Bay region to the National Park System. The New Jersey Pinelands, the largest undeveloped tract on the eastern seaboard, now a National Reserve (and one of those "Affiliated Areas" discussed above), may be considered at some point for formal addition to the System. The area is presently managed by a Commission of federal, State, and local representatives. Lands in Maine have also been touted from time to time as possible additions to the National Park System, though some of those lands may fall victim to large scale development proposals around Moosehead Lake. Much of the land that could comprise a park is owned by pulp and paper companies, who have been known to speculate in land sales after the timber has been "mined."
As environmental awareness changes over time, new opportunities are identified for preservation efforts. In recent years such areas have often been the object of new and innovative management arrangements, often involving little or no federal or other land acquisition. That trend is likely to continue.
Creation of new parks and expansions of older ones awaits a champion person or organization with the conviction, energy, and staying power to make it happen. There are examples, however, where a single individual has successfully championed a park: Marjorie Stoneman Douglas's decades-long efforts on behalf of the Florida Everglades is a recent example.
Another change has occurred in recent years: moves to re-designate some National Monuments as National Parks. Local interests (and their Members of Congress) often see such a change as fostering more visitation and its attendant increased economic activity. For example: Death Valley National Monument in California was expanded and renamed Death Valley National Park in 1994 and Fort Jefferson National Monument (created in 1935 off the southwest coast of Florida) was re-designated Dry Tortugas National Park in 1992. More recently, Cuyahoga National Recreation Area (Ohio) was re-designated Cuyahoga Valley National Park (2000), and Great Sands Dunes National Monument (Colo.) was re-designated Great Sand Dunes National Park (2004.)
My personal opinion is that such re-designation probably has minimal net effect on visitation over the long haul. Though there are important reasons for park visitors and the public to pay attention to the names given park units, most people do not make their choices of parks to visit by the category to which a unit is assigned. On the other hand, many people regard almost every unit of the National Park System as a "National Park." Little harm can come of that.
For a list of recent changes in the National Park System click here.
Q: Who appoints the Director of the National Park Service?
A: The Director of the National Park Service is a Presidential appointee, subject to confirmation with the advice and consent of the Senate. Directors normally serve on schedules congruent with the President who appoints them. For many years the Director was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, not subject to Senate confirmation.
Several Directors have come from within the professional ranks of the National Park Service: Conrad Wirth (1951-64), George B. Hartzog, Jr. (1964-72), Gary Everhardt (1975-77), William Whalen (1977-80), Russell Dickenson (1980-85), and Robert Stanton (1997-2001). William Penn Mott, Jr. (1985-89) came to the Park Service from the California State park system, having served as a professional landscape architect for the National Park Service early in his career. Hartzog, Everhardt, and Stanton are still living. Whalen died in 2006, Dickenson in 2008.
The present director is Mary A. Bomar, a career National Park Service employee who had been serving as a Regional Director. Mary Bomar succeeds Fran Mainella who resigned earlier in 2006.
Now that directors are appointed by the President, it is perhaps a minor miracle that Ms. Bomar was named Director. It remains to be seen whether she will continue the very controversial initiatives of her predecessor.
Q: Who supervises the Director of the National Park Service?
A: The Director reports to the Secretary of the Interior, a Cabinet officer, through an Assistant Secretary whose responsibilities include several bureaus and offices.
Q: How many people work for the National Park Service?
A: Federal employment is measured in what are called full-time-equivalents (FTEs). An FTE is one person employed full time for a year. One FTE may be shared by two or more part-time employees. The National Park Service has about 20,600 full-time equivalents (FTEs.) This includes not only full-time year-around employees, but also part-time and seasonal employees who work when they are needed, mostly during periods of the year having high visitation.
In addition to paid professional staff, the National Park System benefits from a large cadre of uniformed volunteers who donate their time and talent in support of a wide variety of activities in the parks: interpretation, nature walks and talks, trail maintenance, and so forth. Some volunteers come back to a park year after year, becoming genuine experts on a park or some facet of a park. Some professional employees began their association with the parks as a volunteer. You can learn more about the Volunteers in Parks (VIPs) by writing directly to the superintendent of a park unit in which you have an interest.
It is impossible to discuss the staffing in the parks without mentioning that the Bush Administration has been pushing the conversion of federal employment into private sector jobs through outsourcing and contracts. Bush did not invent the process; it has been around for several decades (dubbed the A-76 process.) However, the Bush Administration has approached the topic with renewed vigor. At one time as many as a third of all NPS employees were deemed eligible for conversion to private sector contracts. The theory is that jobs and functions not "inherently governmental" ought to be done by the private sector.
The justification for such action is that such arrangements save taxpayers money. Real net savings to taxpayers are rare, and on many occasions after an initial low bid start, costs escalate and before long it is costing more than it did when federal employees were doing the work. However, the President can boast he has reduced federal employment--even though the actual number of people doing the job may even have increased. Federal positions have been saved, and that is often the objective. In addition, many private sector employees lack the training and long-term interest in and commitment to the resources and values represented by the parks. Turnover is often high, in part because private companies often provide few or no non-salary benefits, such as health insurance.
My personal view is that most such shifts are a poor bargain. Their largest effect is often to disrupt and lower morale among the affected staff while their jobs are being "studied," and even if the function stays with the government for now, the threat can arise again with a change of political leadership.
In truth, ideology drives the push to privatize as much or more than goals of efficiency or improved services.
There is an additional trend now evident--to replace professional National Park Service employees with volunteers. Volunteers have a long and quite honorable history in the National Park System. For years they have augmented professional staffs in ways that particularly benefited the quality of a visitor's experience. In the past, however, volunteers supplemented professional staffs, not replaced them. Today, with park budgets squeezed beyond anything that has existed since WWII, many superintendents, in effort to maintain the quality of services provided to visitors are specifically recruiting volunteers to do jobs that full- or part-time paid staff used to do. "So what is wrong with that?" you ask. Volunteers rarely bring with them specific skills associated with those held by long-time professional staff. They experience relatively rapid turn-over (just as private sector employees do) and are usually not available during the parts of the year when maintenance and other infrastructure jobs are at their peak. It is a good thing easily overdone.
Again, the same ideological forces driving privatization push volunteers to replace professional paid staffs.
Q: What is the budget of the National Park Service?
A: In round numbers the National Park Service had an appropriation (for fiscal year 2006--that last year for which data are available) of about $2.375 billion. About $1.719 billion covers the costs of operating the National Park System, $216 million for construction and major maintenance, and $440 million for everything else. "Everything else" includes grants to the states under the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and various other appropriations only indirectly benefiting the National Park System.
The President proposes a comparable set of numbers for fiscal year 2008: gross appropriations of $2.363 billion; $1.969 for operation of the National Park System, only $201 million for construction and major maintenance, and $193 million for everything else--a modest increase in operating funds, but decreases in both construction and money for "everything else." Money has simply been moved around--and the overall appropriation would decrease by some $12 million.
More information about the Park Service 2008 budget is available at: http://home.nps.gov/applications/budget2/fy08gbk.htm
Today the budget of the National Park Service is well below actual needs. Long-deferred maintenance and utility replacement remains undone, in spite of the fact that President Bush promised to eliminate the backlog during his first term in office. It remains to be seen whether he will make good on that promise during his second term--his budget for fiscal year 2008 involves a net reduction in total NPS funding, notwithstanding a modest increase for park operations. The prospects are not encouraging, however, even if the Congress does not go along with the President's budget, given the size of both the annual budget deficit and the long-term national debt.
I have no way of knowing what actual needs might be, and part of the problem is that even the National Park Service has little hard data and plans to support large increases in appropriations. The Park Service does not have a good record when it comes to long-range planning. But, then, neither does any other agency of government. Most planning focuses on the four-year term of a sitting President, seldom longer.
One notable exception to that observation was MISSION 66, an effort to play "catch up" with park developments following World War II, during which capital investment in the parks was virtually non-existent. MISSION 66 was in many ways a great success, particularly for the revival it sparked of interest in and commitment to the National Park System, both within the Park Service itself and with the public. The down side was that many of the developments undertaken with MISSION 66 money were accomplished with inadequate concern for the environment. It would be much hoped that lessons learned then would make such mistakes less possible today. The idea of a ten-year (or pick any other time frame) program to eliminate the backlog and build new facilities known to be needed would garner widespread support. I will be very surprised if it happens during President Bush's second term in office. If you think it would be a good idea, let your Member of Congress and Senators know how you feel about it.
Q: Do you, Dwight, have a favorite park?
A: My answer is central to the argument above and on my Home Page that no area should ever be divested.
No, I do not have a favorite. In the last 35 years I have visited close to half of the parks, albeit some of them on official business, which is not exactly the same as visiting them on vacation. In 1998-99 my wife and I traveled for some thirteen months and over 27,000 circuitous miles from North Carolina to Alaska and back. In the course of that travel we visited 76 units of the National Park System, every one of them for at least two days and some for as long as two weeks. About a dozen of the parks we visited were for me a first time visit.
I have never visited any park I thought was a mistake.
Every park in the System is unique, having its own physical and historic characteristics that give it meaning and significance. Sometimes the year in which a park was created, or the controversy surrounding its beginnings are important to understanding the park's significance. Each park unit should be experienced on its own terms. Done in that way, each park reveals its unique qualities and affords its own distinctive experience.
I am quite fickle about parks I visit, loving each in turn as I experience it. There are no favorites here.
If you have a question about the National Park System for which you would like an answer, please e-mail me and ask it. You can use the e-mail form on my Home Page. I will try to respond to you as promptly as possible.
Page last updated: 05/31/08
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