The National Parks Service has sounded the
alarm that a backlog of almost $12 billion in deferred maintenance
projects has built up over the past several decades and is threatening
the safety of the parks for visitors and staff.
Many of the repairs are mundane leaky roofs and rotting wood at visitors
centers, or trails that have been closed for repairs. Passenger
elevators at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico have been
broken for years.
But some of the biggest repair projects on the to-do list include
repairs on the most iconic park properties in the United States. The
list includes $655 million in infrastructure repairs to the National
Mall in Washington, D.C. Within that figure, $250 million is earmarked
for the Arlington Memorial Bridge to Arlington Cemetery. The road deck
of the bridge has deteriorated so severely that it will be closed down
by the Federal Highway Administration in 2021 unless the bridge is
completely replaced, the park service said.
Also on the Mall, the crumbling 120-year-old seawall of the tidal basin
experiences daily flooding, threatening the mall's iconic cherry trees,
Catherine Townsend, of the Trust for the National Mall, said at a
hearing in June.
National Park Service parks and museums aren't just beautiful spots for
visitors. They're also an economic engine and job creator for the areas
around the parks, said Marcia Marcia Argust, project director of the Pew
Charitable Trust's Restore America's Parks division.
More than 318 million people visit National Park Services sites each
year, and they're spending about $20 billion in local communities,
Argust said. About 330,000 park employees spend their salaries at
grocery stores and other establishments in gateway communities that
serve park visitors.
"If you invest in fixing parks, there could be an additional 110,000
jobs for contractors, plumbers, masons and others working on some of the
deferred maintenance projects," Argust said.
The country's 428 national parks are seeing record numbers of visitors,
and that's putting a strain on the already-aging facilities, said John
Garder of the National Park Conservation Association.
"These are historic structures, some of them really old facilities that were constructed when the parks were established."
That includes West Virginia's historic Lockwood House Museum at Harpers
Ferry National Historical Park, where wounded Union soldiers were
treated during the Battle of Harpers Ferry in September 1862. Peeling
paint and building damage has closed the house to visitors. An estimated
$400,000 in repairs is needed, the park service said.
Some of the repairs are for infrastructure behind the scenes. For
example, out of $313 million needed for repairs in Grand Canyon National
Park in Arizona, about $100 million is needed to
fix and replace the water system on the south rim of the canyon. The
outdated system has about 30 leaks per year, the park service said.
At the nation's most heavily visited park, San Francisco's Golden Gate
National Recreation Area, where 15.2 million people visited in 2018, the
plumbing system requires a $9 million upgrade. Total repairs for that
park add up to an estimated $324 million.
"Restore Our Parks" bill moves forward
A bill has been introduced in the U.S. House that would pay $6.5 billion
for repairs to U.S. national parks using oil and gas tax royalties from
drilling on federal land. Supporters are hopeful the measure can make
it out of committee before Congress breaks for the summer recess in
August. Even if it doesn't, the measure has bi-partisan support and is
supported by the Trump administration, Pew's Argust said.
The Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act is sponsored by Rep. Rob
Bishop, R-Utah. More than 250 bipartisan co-sponsors have jumped on the
bill in the House. The bill has been making its way through the House
Committee on Natural Resources.
The proposed bill dedicates up to $1.3 billion every year for five years
to public lands infrastructure repairs for a total of $6.5 billion.
Eighty percent of the money would go to National Park Service sites. A
dedicated funding source would come from 50 percent of both onshore and
offshore energy royalties for drilling projects on public land.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, is sponsoring a companion bill in the U.S. Senate.
"Park staff do the best they can with the money they are given, but
aging park visitor centers, roads and sewer systems across the park
system reflect the lack of investment from the federal government," said
Theresa Pierno, of the National Parks Conservation Association, at the
June hearing. "Passage of this bipartisan legislation would reprioritize
our national parks, ensure that their historic and natural resources
are well protected, and support visitors and the countless local
economies that benefit from them."
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