National Parks Are Hamstrung by Shrinking Budgets

Rangers fed up with cutbacks, job outsourcing .

by Janet Wilson, Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle - April 16, 2004

Death Valley National Park -- Ed Forner is 8,000 feet above the vast, sunburned desert. Stomach- dropping mountain ranges unfurl outside the tiny plane's cockpit, each more spectacular than the last: Panamint, Inyo, Last Chance, Sierra.

But the pilot's not really looking. Sometimes he can't see the wild landscape he's charged with protecting for the roadblocks that Washington keeps throwing in his way, he says. "All I see are stop signs!" he shouts over the engine's whine.

Forner has been a National Park Service ranger for 29 years. He loves his work, considers it a privilege to serve both the public and the land. But he is fed up. And he's not alone.

Millions of visitors a year hear friendly rangers banter about prehistory at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska or geology at Utah's Zion National Park. The crisp green-and-gray uniforms declare that all is right in this nationwide realm of 387 taxpayer-financed battlefields, cemeteries, ruins, seashores, parkways, preserves, scenic rivers, trails and parks. Out of earshot, however, many employees complain about slashed budgets and staffs and say they fear recrimination if they don't toe the line.

Forner says these days he finds himself yanking on and off four hats in his many roles at Death Valley: park pilot, law-enforcement ranger, radio dispatch coordinator and wildlife coordinator. The National Park Service family is close-knit, he says, "but the family is pretty demoralized right now. "

At Death Valley, all hands pitch in to drive the ambulance or fire trucks or do countless other chores. Before heading to town, 58 miles away, a staffer asks around for video or grocery requests. When a relative is sick or dies, employees donate vacation days to their bereaved colleague.

Beneath the camaraderie lies a devotion to "the mission," enshrined in the congressional Organic Act of 1916 that created the park service. Any ranger anywhere will rattle it off like the Ten Commandments: "Which purpose is to conserve the scenery, and the natural and historic objects, and the wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner . .. as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

Yet many complain that their mission is being undercut. "Any park superintendent who says the national parks aren't getting slighted isn't worth their ... salt," says J.T. Reynolds, 57, superintendent at Death Valley National Park, a 35-year parks veteran.

He points to evidence: Crumbling ceiling tile is falling on visitors' heads. The huge Ansel Adams prints that graced the visitor center walls have been pulled down because of ugly stains from spring rains. To battle proposed development on the park's doorstep that could suck dry its fragile water supply, Reynolds is borrowing biologists from other agencies. Death Valley is down 42 positions over the past several years, with 106 left.

Reynolds and his wife liked Death Valley immediately for its wide-open spaces, and because of the fierce dedication of the staff. "That's the key holding the parks together," he says. "These people will not quit in spite of all the fastballs being thrown at them."

His staff returns the compliment but worries about him, too. "He's admired here because he's willing to stick up for Death Valley," said Charlie Callagan, a 20-year ranger who has spent the last 14 years at Death Valley. "We have faith in him, but we don't want his head to be put on a chopping block."

Many staff at other parks decline to speak on the record, citing the firing of U.S. Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers in December. Three days after a newspaper story quoted Chambers about budget woes, the park service suspended her and banned her from speaking to reporters. Days later, she was terminated. The decision is being reviewed.

Last month, a memo advised some national parks to trim hours quietly during the coming busy summer season but to avoid using the word "cuts" to minimize public outcry, instead substituting "service level adjustments."

"George Orwell wrote about that in '1984,' " notes Death Valley maintenance worker Matt MacIsaac.

Park rangers are still "paid in sunsets," and there is still the adrenaline rush of backcountry rescues. But years of shrinking budgets, topped by a push to contract out many park-service jobs, seem to have changed the collective mood.

"It's a pretty bleak outlook," says Stacy Allen, with the service for 39 years. He often works seven-day weeks as superintendent at Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee because of staffing shortages. Last month, he says, he had to figure out whether as much as 50 percent of his remaining staff was performing "inherently governmental" work or could be replaced by private contractors.

A new study by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group for the national parks, argues that successive presidents and Congress have underfunded the parks' operating costs by an estimated $600 million annually during the past decade, with small budget increases failing to keep pace with spiraling costs and staffing needs. National Park Service Director Fran Mainella has said President Bush's budget request of $2.4 billion for the agency for next year represents a 4 percent increase. But critics say that will not begin to cover total costs.

Others say that the National Park Service always has been underfunded and that at least now money is being put into capital projects. In Sequoia National Park, for example, the roads are badly eroded. The hairpin mountain turns and handmade rock walls are a mess. But funding to repair 11 miles of road came through a few years ago. "Let's just say my own morale is good," says Dick Martin, superintendent at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

At Yosemite, "proud partners" such as Ford, Kodak and Chevron have paid for park projects.

Maintenance workers and scientists are the two categories that are the subject of "competitive sourcing" studies at some parks. The tone behind this initiative was reflected in a comment from Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, who called the Interior Department "the world's largest lawn-care service."

As for the subcontracting of scientists, some park service staffers see it as a political gambit. "They want to get rid of the people who can say, 'No, you can't drill for oil there,' " says Kelly Turner, 45, who as Death Valley's archaeologist monitors more than 5,000 prehistoric and historic sites. She hires seasonal helpers when possible, but mostly she says she just runs as hard as she can to catalog what's out there before it is lost forever.

And rangers have for years complained that they are badly outmanned in the increasingly hazardous mission of riding herd on the people flocking to national parks. Three have been killed on the job in the past five years.

When J.T. Reynolds is stressed by budget woes or the latest "talking points" from headquarters, he jumps in his rig and heads into the park. He will find a favorite mountain or deep canyon, where it is cooler, or head to Badwater, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, just a few miles down the road.

"There is something spiritual about being high on a mountain ... or even at Badwater, looking up at snowy Telegraph Peak," he says.

To Reynolds, it's what the national parks are all about, to remind you that you are part of something bigger.