Recent comments

Frank,

I be quite cynical concerning the way the NPS is managing parks, but the NPS has NOT "failed miserably" as you suggest.

Let's provide the entire sentence of The Organic Act which establishes the "mission" of the NPS: "The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purposes of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, 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 and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

This Act was signed in 1916. WE are the future generation, and we, by the millions, enjoy our parks which are well protected, despite the myriad of use and developement controversies we are discussing here.

Let's pull out a few verbs...PROMOTE, REGULATE, CONSERVE, PROVIDE FOR THE ENJOYMENT, LEAVE UNIMPAIRED...the mission paradox implied by these verbs is now a cliche. And certainly the NPS fails in little and sometimes not so little ways every day, but the NPS has not "failed miserably" at its mission. And when it does fail, those mistakes are made in the "provide for the enjoyment" arena as much as they are made in the "to conserve and leave unimpaired" arena.

To say that these parties and such are "totally out of character" with the NPS mission is sophomoric thinking. Alas, if only these decisions were that simple.

Kurt y'all are doing a great job of offering a ground breaking website to further much needed dialogue. It is much appreciated. Where can I send a contribution? Remember I'm a free market capitalist and would love to voluntarily support your efforts with a free will offering of monetary support.

On a separate tangent I have noticed that hardly any of the contributors to these discussions are actual employees of the NPS. Or at least they have not identified themselves as such. A pity because this website provides a rare opportunity for park professionals to exchange information and ideas that is badly needed in that closed off and insular agency. If any organization could use the doors to be opened to let in some fresh air it is the NPS!

Again I appreciate what you and Jeremy are doing and believe that most of the readers of this website are very glad you are in cyberspace.

The "mission" of the NPS is/was to leave places unimpaired, and they've failed miserably in keeping that promise.

Why do the writers of this blog seem to downplay and/or ignore the many violations (broken promises) of the Organic Act?

The authors' and some readers' focus on social functions at historic sites seems trite in comparison the larger issues of the broken bureaucracy of the NPS and its failure to protect natural places from impairment. I can see that this is a real issue, but it concerns me that people are more upset over some nudity in a prison than, say, a bulldozer being driven through wilderness. How come articles like that don't get 20+ posts? Why does it take race and sexy dancers to get people to speak out?

The cultural resources protected by the park are as important as its natural resources. I agree with an earlier comment that it is a pointless exercise to pit one park against another for a battle between national significance. When the parks were established, either through Presidential Proclamation or as an act of Congress, they were deemed to be important. As 'lepanto' points out, there have been times that park units have gone through a reevaluation of significance. And in fact, park units have left the national system over the years (to see which parks, look for the 'disbanded' headings on this list at wikipedia). Beamis, I wouldn't say I support "BIG" government, but I do support a Federal Government. There are things we can accomplish as a whole better than we can on a state-by-state or even municipality-by-municipality basis.

I'd like to bring the conversation back to the topic of the article though, which is, considering that the National Park Service does manage these places (Alcatraz and Boston Naval Yard), are these parties acting contrary to the purposes for which the parks were established? I think someone out there could make an argument that they were consistent with the mission. I'd love to hear it. But, I'm of the opinion that these events were nothing more than corporate parties totally out of character with the mission the Park Service has promised to uphold on our behalf.

Beamis. God love ya. Keep it up. Your voice and perspective are refreshing!

Kath makes a good point about California sending more than it gets back, but I still think Santa Monica Mountains is not worthy of National Park Status. (I hike there. State or county park status would be plenty of protection for these lands.) On the other hand, nearby Channel Islands NP is an extraordinary landscape

In 1997, I played a role (as a set team member) in the "Big Park" "theft" of a portion of Santa Cruz Island. Trust me, and I've got photos of the gulleys lined with sheep carcasses (left by hunters) to prove it, Santa Cruz Island is profoundly better off in the hands of the NPS. In fact, I hate to think of the money and attention that goes to Santa Monica Mountains that should go to the Channel Islands.

Eminent Domain and its ilk (pork barrel government) has resulted in some wonderful things and some evil things. The difficult part is deciding which is which.
(BTW, I have written about a "haunting" related to the "taking over" of a homestead in Big South Fork. It's a cute if not eerie story that reveals the vague yet lasting guilt felt by rangers working on lands "stolen" by the NPS. If you are curious about the Blevins story, the excerpt is on my website. http://www.hauntedhiker.com/favorite.htm )

Since California sends much more to the federal government than we get back, having the Santa Monica Mountains preserved by the federal government is at least a drop in the bucket of having the taxes we send to Washington come back.

The consensus, from the comments so far, is for a strong national government that is indespensible to our ability to "function effectively as a great and civilized place to live". What would we do without them? Devolve into barbarism? At least I'm beginning to understand that the majority of national park supporters are also supporters of BIG government and feel that the ends justify the means. I personally am ashamed of the criminal theft of places such as the Tetons (with the corporatist help and self-motivated cunning of the Rockefellers) and Shenandoah from the poor mountaineers who formerly occupied those hills. It is a shameful blot on our nation's history as are many other park areas too numerous to mention. To their credit the administration of Shenandoah has at least conceded, with an interpretive sign that the park was essentially stolen from its lawful landowners to boost tourism in a depressed area. Sorry folks, our bad but enjoy the park.

I'm glad most of you are comfortable with the current way our government runs its affairs especially since the way parks are designated is similar to the ways that other projects get funded and wars started. Again I don't think you wish to question the means as long as you are personally satisfied with the ends. In this case "civilizing and enhancing an important region of America." Sort of sounds like what we are supposed to be doing in Iraq.

Mr. Beamis -- you invite us to call you 'old fashioned.' Your view is pre-constitutional. Had we relied on local communities, we Tetons would not have been preserved, just to name one. You can be cynical if you want about how they pieced together Santa Monica, but the truth remains the nation is better because Santa Monica is civilizing and enhancing an iimportant region of America that needs to function effectively as a great and civilized place to live.

Elsewhere you belittle members of congress because they are temporary, which of course is another idea at the foundation of our Nation and constitution. James Watt initiated a search in 1981 to review all the parks established in the 1970's because he suspected, as you seem to, that the System was infiltrated with inappropriate areas. It was quickly demonstrated that site after site was, in fact, suitable and appropriate, even if he had not known enough in the first place about the american nation to understand significance and Meaning and value to the nation. He quickly buried the report, changed the subject, and focused instead on preventing the identification of new areas.

Yours is actually a larger argument, about the value of nationhood and "forming one union." On his tour around Britain in the early 1700's Daniel Defoe noted that in many ways Britain and Europe still had not caught up to the Romans. He speculates: "It is true that the Romans being the Lords of the World, had the Command of the People, their Persons and their work . . . even their armies were employ'd in these noble Undertakings.. . . .But now the CasE is alter'd, Labor is dear, Wages high . . . . . so that as rich as we are, it would exhaust the whole Nation to build the Edifices, the Causways, the Aqueducts, Lines, Castles, Fortifications and other publick Works, which the Romans built with very little Expence. . . . ' Even the speed of transportation during such a rich time in England had not yet caught up to the Romans, when demand, and not infrastructure, was the limit on trade.

One of the ways America has taken advantage of the leverage you get as "one union," as a Nation, was to establish national parks and national public works. Abraham Lincoln spent much of his career trying to establish national public works, but it wasn't until the Civil War disenfranchised the regionalists in the South who had consistently opposed national leverage that some of the great nation-building congressional enactments occurred, helping to make America the great country it is. The idea of national parks came very soon after. It is important for me to know a site at Santa Monica in southern california or in the Blackstone Valley and Lowell in Massachusetts or in Lower Manhattan in New York or on a Homestead in Nebraska are part of what makes me an American.

Every significant site in America is not self-sustaining. Some that could be self-sustaining with a robust marketing and economic development plan do sometimes risk trading the integrity of their prime resources for funding leverage. You site Mount Vernon, yet many preservationists are concerned that the new airconditioning system, installed to enhance visitation, may be undermining the integrity of the structure. It would be better if we could first do the best job with the best preservation treatment for a park site, and then provide for the best balance of public enjoyment.

america is a greater country because we think as a nation and act as a nation, and our national parks reflect what we tell our elected officials we think is the best of america.

I did the same trip in June 1990 and thought it was crowded back then. And we were by far less then half the people seen in this video clip. There were wide gaps in the line on the cables, and certainly no queue before you got to the cables. Or maybe we were just earlier in the day - judging from sun and shadows. Yosemite Valley and the day trips from there are places of mass tourism. And all who visit are part of it, no matter if they are reading this blog, see themselves as individualists and/or love the backcountry too. And there isn't much wrong with it, if you know about the conditions before and don't expect much more. For many people, driving up to Glacier Point and climbing Half Dome is the closest they will ever get to mountaineering - and that's fine too.

But fortunately one just has to walk in a different direction and can experience something close to solitude in Yosemite NP. For example in Tuolumne Meadows, just one mile from Tioga road.

Rocky Horror Picture Show was supposed to be fiction. This makes me ill. According to the news quotes and photos I've seen (there are lots on the web) there were a lot more than 750 people in attendance. According to the event organizer, he wished they had done a better job of restricting it to the people who were invited (he estimated over a thousand). He was quoted in the news saying people on the mainland were hearing about it as the night went on and somehow hopped on ferry boats to the island. What irks me more than anything is seeing these people climb all over the walls, bars, on top of furniture, shredding pillows and a mattress in some pictures. There are blogs that people have posted where they brag about doing drugs (ecstasy) at the "rave" on "the rock", the photos on the internet show that so many people ignored the regulations as set forth by the NPS. It's clear that once they let the cat out of the bag, there's no putting it back in. The concept of designated smoking areas was a joke. These Gen-whatevers aren't going to come back and bring their kids along for a history lesson... if they even have kids in the first place. And the Gateway reps calling it "educational" and environmentally sensitive and even being in a position of defending this crap really ticks me off too. I suppose if you're not wearing any clothes that's considered ecologically friendly? And no one outside of that party would ever consider buying clothes like the ones being modelled. And even if someone did, they'd probably be worn once if at all, then tossed by our throw-away society. How environmentally friendly is that?

-- Jon Merryman

Speaking for the 'urban' park in L. A., that is the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. It is mountainous terrain between the San Fernando Valley and Malibu. One of it's 'sites' is the old Paramount movie ranch still used for filming today. It is home to cougars, deer, bobcats and many varieties of raptors. And it's needed badly as both a wildlife corridor and as valuable park and open space for the all too densely populated region. Is it on the same level of wilderness or scenery as Yosemite, Sequoia or the Channel Islands. No. But it should be maintained as a park, either county, state or national. The designation doesn't really matter, except for which group of taxpayers pay for it.

"As long as we fight with each other, and belittle and trivialize the significance of this or that park, rather than fight for enough funding in this rich country for all the parks, Congress has an excuse not to fund;"

Well the same could be said for welfare clients, Section 8 vouchers for housing assistance and agriculture subsidies for corporate farmers. Why quibble about who is truly in need of assistance when we are rich enough to fund all of it anyway? Bad argument all the way around.

I think it would be a very useful debate to look at ALL of the parks and determine if they really meet the criteria of national signifigance. The ability of temporarily elected members of Congress to saddle an agency in perpetuity with inappropriate and unecessary parks drains the system and makes it nothing more than a political spoils game.

I'll throw it out there again: is Keeweenaw (the cooper smelting historical park in Michigan), Steamtown, urban parks in NYC/NJ, S.F., L.A. and Cleveland, a former textile mill in Massachusetts and the Boston Navy Yard truly what constitute national treasures?

I'd be interested to hear some of your responses.