News (Media Awareness Project) - US CO: Editorial: Our Shortchanged Parks |
| Title: | US CO: Editorial: Our Shortchanged Parks |
| Published On: | 2003-06-01 |
| Source: | Daily Camera (CO) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-01-20 05:38:21 |
OUR SHORTCHANGED PARKS
Every president since Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s has pledged to fix
up the national parks. President Bush did so just two years ago. It's a
popular political issue because people cherish the parks, monuments and
historic sites administered by the National Park Service. But the promises
have been lamentably empty, so much so that the parks suffer a $5 billion
backlog in repair and rehabilitation. The service has a repair budget of
barely $85 million for 388 park sites.
That makes it remarkably bad judgment for the Park Service to propose
cutting its meager maintenance and repair budget in California and the West
to help pay nearly $20 million for rangers to participate in anti-terrorist
activities.
The $4.6 million targeted to be shaved off is 28 percent of the total
regional budget for repair.
Where are all those billions of dollars appropriated for homeland security?
Surely $20 million of that money could be spared to pay for anti-terrorism
in the parks and, we hope, the eradication of marijuana-growing and
harvesting in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks.
Bush waxed eloquent two years ago during a visit to Sequoia. Donning a Park
Service jacket, he declared, "Many parks have gone years without receiving
the kind of care and upkeep the American people expect." Bush proposed a
$4.9 billion five-year program to eliminate the maintenance backlog. This
year's $85 million hardly measures up. It's not entirely Bush's fault.
Congress, whether under the control of Democrats or Republicans, has been
negligent of the parks.
A century ago this month, President Theodore Roosevelt spent three days in
the Yosemite wilderness with famed naturalist John Muir. Concluding the
trip, he said: "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the
Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias Our people should see to it that
they are preserved for their children and their children's children
forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred."
It's time finally to meet that challenge.
The Los Angeles Times
Every president since Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s has pledged to fix
up the national parks. President Bush did so just two years ago. It's a
popular political issue because people cherish the parks, monuments and
historic sites administered by the National Park Service. But the promises
have been lamentably empty, so much so that the parks suffer a $5 billion
backlog in repair and rehabilitation. The service has a repair budget of
barely $85 million for 388 park sites.
That makes it remarkably bad judgment for the Park Service to propose
cutting its meager maintenance and repair budget in California and the West
to help pay nearly $20 million for rangers to participate in anti-terrorist
activities.
The $4.6 million targeted to be shaved off is 28 percent of the total
regional budget for repair.
Where are all those billions of dollars appropriated for homeland security?
Surely $20 million of that money could be spared to pay for anti-terrorism
in the parks and, we hope, the eradication of marijuana-growing and
harvesting in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks.
Bush waxed eloquent two years ago during a visit to Sequoia. Donning a Park
Service jacket, he declared, "Many parks have gone years without receiving
the kind of care and upkeep the American people expect." Bush proposed a
$4.9 billion five-year program to eliminate the maintenance backlog. This
year's $85 million hardly measures up. It's not entirely Bush's fault.
Congress, whether under the control of Democrats or Republicans, has been
negligent of the parks.
A century ago this month, President Theodore Roosevelt spent three days in
the Yosemite wilderness with famed naturalist John Muir. Concluding the
trip, he said: "There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the
Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias Our people should see to it that
they are preserved for their children and their children's children
forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred."
It's time finally to meet that challenge.
The Los Angeles Times
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