Budget constraints dictated by Congress mean you'll be swimming at your own risk next year at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where officials will not be hiring lifeguards for three beaches that in the past have had the guards.
Outer Banks Group Superintendent Barclay Trimble said that cut, and others, were made necessary by the parks' current budget. In October, to re-open the government, Congress provided funds at Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 levels through January 15, 2014. Final funding for FY 2014 may not be resolved before then.
"Given our current budget realities and the uncertainty for the future, the National Park Service is exercising extreme caution in spending to ensure that available funding is directed towards the highest priorities," Superintendent Trimble said in a prepared statement.
The following operational changes will occur this fiscal year:
* Cape Hatteras National Seashore Visitor Centers located on Ocracoke Island and the Fort Raleigh Visitor Center will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays from December 2, 2013, through mid-March to early April 2014.
* Lifeguard operations on all three lifeguarded beaches in the Seashore will be discontinued for FY 2014.
* Eight garbage dumpsters located adjacent to beach access ramps along NC Highway 12 will be replaced with smaller trash/recycling containers.
* Temporary structures at Wright Brothers National Memorial will be removed, providing substantial savings on utility and maintenance costs.
Other measures include reducing purchases of supplies and equipment, decreasing staff travel and training, and postponing vehicle procurement. There is also a likelihood of delaying the hiring of vacant positions.
"We wish we did not have to reduce our visitor services, and we know a lot of people will be disappointed, but we had to make some difficult decisions regarding park operations and priorities," said Superintendent Trimble. "The current budget situation does not allow us to have sufficient staff to keep the same number of hours and the degree of services as we have done in the past. We hope the situation changes and we will be able to return our visitor services to their former operating schedules in the future."
Comments
2012 numbers appeared to be up because people, mostly not staying on seashore, wanted to see the new temporary bridge and other rubber necking of the hurricane damage. Most of the businesses say people we're just driving through And that's what I observed. Reality is that visitation is way down, ask ANY business located within the park.
I realize the liberal enviro wackos are against economic prosperity but it does hurt real people. Oh yeah, people are bad too...
Wayne Cone was one of a kind.
Ron, he was Director at Albright when I attended Intro to Park Operations in 1968. Did he become superintendent at Yosemite after Larry Hadley?
Could it be that those liberal enviro wackos are just driving through because they don't want to spend money with businesses that think their customers are liberal enviro wackos?
Beach, economists and state and county records seem to disagree with your conclusions. Here's part of a report given to the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce in April 2012 by Dr. James Kleckley, of East Carolina University:
The largest negative impact to the Outer Banks economy was felt in real estate and construction. The region experienced a dramatic slowdown in the demand for second homes, retirement homes, and resort investment property – and this sector of the economy (which includes construction) is not expected to recover in the near future. However, the national economy improves, the demand for retirement homes and second homes should recover and buyers should once again begin taking advantage of the opportunities found in the local housing market.
Further, the state Commerce Department reports that in Dare County median family income grew 35 percent from 2000 to 2011, to $66,628, that July 2013 employment was up more than 5,000 from 2012, and unemployment was down from 11.3 percent to 6.9 percent.
Further, according to the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, restaurant business in 2012 was up 9.3 percent over 2011, and through the first nine months of 2013 it was up 2.12 percent. The $208,655,656 gross in meal sales for 2012 was the highest going back to 2000 at least.
Gross occupancy income for the Outer Banks hit $385,182,596 in 2012, a 4 percent increase over 2011 (and seeming record high), and through September 2013 it was running nearly 3 percent ahead of 2012 levels, according to the Visitors Bureau.
Also, year-to-date occupancy on Hatteras Island lodgings was up 2.13 percent through September. Most interesting is that the highest bump in lodgings came at Buxton, up 7.4 percent through September. The only decrease was at Frisco, just half-a-percent.
So it would seem that restaurants and lodgings were seeing an increase in business in recent years.
Lee, most liberal enviro wackos judge and dictate without ever visiting in the first place, part of where the wacko component comes from and just fuels the frustration. Life on CHNSRA ain't the same as Chapel Hill...
In his April 2013 statement on the sequester Director Jarvis states:
"We excluded positions that are required to ensure the health and safety of visitors and employees or protect resources and assets"
http://www.nps.gov/legal/testimony/113th/Oversight%20Hearing%20on%20Fede...
So having lifeguards in the Graveyard of the Atlantic isn't required to ensure the safety of visitors?
Following Jarvis's own directive there should have been furloughs of non essential staff before cuts to visitor protection were made so how many office workers in the OBX group have been furloughed before the OBX group superintendent was forced to do this? None of course. And none of those HQ people will have be out on the beach next July face to face with a distraught family member after their loved one gets pulled out by a rip current --some field ranger who arrives twenty minutes after the event will be faced with that.
Meanwhile Eugene O'Neil NHS with its average of ten visitors a day and New Orleans Jazz NHP and all the other pork barrel parks will be open for business.
Lee, Wayne Cone was the Yosemite superintendent who succeeded Larry Hadley in late 1970. He had perhaps the shortest tenure in that position of any Yosemite park superintendent. Rumors have it that he opposed the contruction of a Wells Fargo Bank in Yosemite Village, which upset the park concessioner, and which inturn led to a rapid administrative re-assignment and a change of address. Perhaps there were other factors in the works as well? Wayne Cone was an inspiration to all of us who had the chance to work under his leadership.
Thanks, Owen. That helped jog my memory and I do vaguely recall the Wells Fargo flap. Maybe I didn't know that Wayne was its victim.
Just one more example of outside political pressures running the NPS. I wonder which Congressman was dipping into a WF money bag?