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The Land That Embodies America

July 6, 2006

I celebrated Independence Day by doing what General Tommy Franks advised his fellow citizens to do in an op-ed published July 4 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – visit a national park because “they preserve the core of what it means to be an American.”

I visited one of the lesser known among the 390 parks, monuments, memorials, preserves, recreation areas, and historic sites in our park system – Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve, on Whidbey Island north of Seattle.

At the top of the coastal bluff, amidst the conifers and the saltwater air, the views were spectacular. On one of western Washington’s uncommon clear days, one can see two other national parks in the distance. Far to the south lies Mount Rainier, with its mantle of year-round snow cover. Westward across Puget Sound, the peaks of Olympic National Park are a jagged redoubt between the sound and the Pacific Ocean.

Olympic was first protected by Theodore Roosevelt, who used his powers under the Antiquities Act in 1908 to establish a national monument in the Olympic Peninsula's wild temperate rainforest. That sort of decisive action in the public interest earned TR a lasting place in history and his face on the cover of TIME magazine nearly 90 years after his death.

Like TR, Americans love national parks. But their elected leaders today are not backing up that love with commitment – the dollars needed to care properly for the parks and to give visitors an inspirational and educational experience.

The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, made up of more than 500 retired rangers and park superintendents, recently surveyed 37 national park units. The group’s report found that park services are becoming threadbare as a result of stingy funding. The National Park Service’s annual operating shortfall is $600 million.

At Olympic, for example, law enforcement ranger positions have been cut from 21 full-time and 17 seasonal to 18 full-time and only 10 seasonal since 2004. At Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, one of the most heavily visited parks in the country, a visitors’ center has been closed and visitors must drive 50 miles for interpretive services. At Biscayne National Park in Florida, resource monitoring has been cut for half of each week. At Yosemite, the number of seasonal rangers providing interpretive talks has been reduced from 45 to eight.

In short, America’s crown jewels are becoming tarnished as a result of neglect. If he were alive today, TR would be storming the halls of Congress and demanding action to save our nation’s natural and historic heritage.

On the bright side, over at the Forest Service, there will be no sales of national forest lands this year. The administration’s proposal to sell pieces of national forest lands to fund rural schools support – a budgeting dodge about as sustainable as selling your furniture to pay the light bill – went over like a lead balloon in Congress and sank without a trace in the money committees.

The key appropriations subcommittee chairmen, Senator Conrad Burns of Montana and Congressman Charles Taylor of North Carolina, don’t usually make the “A” list of conservation champions. On the land sales issue, however, lots of phone calls from angry hunters put the lawmakers in touch with their inner Theodore Roosevelt, and they dismissed the foolish sales proposal out of hand.

In future years, however, we may not be so lucky. Future congressmen facing the federal government’s enormous unfunded liabilities may choose to further starve our public lands and even settle for the sugar of one-shot land sales in order to avoid the inevitable bitter budget medicine for one more election cycle.

So, while you can, follow General Franks’ orders and do your patriotic duty. Celebrate our nation all summer by visiting the national parks, forests, and other public lands that were set aside for you and your family to enjoy.

Let’s celebrate our inheritance, and then work like hell to preserve it and pass it on, intact, to future generations.