When the National Park Service was created nearly a century ago, its mission seemed straightforward: to preserve the landscape for the enjoyment of today's and tomorrow's generations. As the agency nears its centennial, is there a need to recommit to that mission?
Those who believe so might point to ever-increasing fees across the National Park System, efforts to create deeper channels for boats at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and ongoing snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park.
But there also are groups that believe the Park Service should indeed re-examine its mission statement and focus a bit more on recreation in the parks and working with businesses that reflect an element of the human landscape in the parks, such as the oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore.
If you follow the writings and musings of Michael Frome, the man whom the late Gaylord Nelson said had no literary peer when it came to arguing for "a national ethic of environmental stewardship," you'll sense his belief that the Park Service needs to focus more on the environmental landscape of the park system.
That message was inherent in Mr. Frome's recent thoughts on the approval of a cellphone tower near Lake in Yellowstone.
Cellphone service originating from inside the boundaries of Yellowstone has been limited to the Mammoth, Old Faithful, Canyon, Tower-Roosevelt, and Grant developed areas. The Lake developed area is the one additional location in the park where park managers determined cellphone coverage could be added under the park’s 2008 Wireless Communications Services Plan Environmental Assessment and its associated Finding of No Significant Impact.
In July the park received permission to erect a tower near Lake. The new cellular site is to be located next to a buried water tank on a 100-foot rise above the Lake Administrative Area and 700 feet below the top of the Elephant Back Ridge. This site already has access via an existing service road and is near existing electric and phone lines. Antennas will be configured to minimize spillover coverage into Yellowstone’s backcountry.
In the September edition of his Portogram, Mr. Frome laments that decision.
"Changes made in response to comments were incorporated into a Finding of No Significant Impact. No significant impact — so the park administrators said. As they see it, the developed areas, with electric wires, phone lines, lots of automobiles, gas stations, hotels, commercial gift shops and sewage treatment, are 'sacrifice areas,' otherwise known as popcorn playgrounds or tourist ghettos," he writes.
"Before coming, you think of Yellowstone the way it is in the nature series on television. The Park Service tells you to unplug your ears and connect with nature — but when you arrive you can check your e-mail, the state of your stocks, and feel the conveniences of home," continues Mr. Frome. "Perhaps park administrators might have chosen not to allow those towers in the first place. They might have determined this was a strictly commercial service using public resources and public land, and that the signals the towers emit can spill into and pollute hiking trails away from developed areas.
"They might have decided that since hotels in the park get along without television, they can make it without wireless Internet service. When people come to Yellowstone, it’s one of the special times in their lives. They want to hear the splash of geysers and feel themselves in harmony with natural forces that over the centuries created the thermal features, peaks and canyons. That is what they come here for, and not having that sound drowned out by somebody conversing via cell phone."
As Mr. Frome goes on to argue against the cell tower, he says national parks "are presumed preserved to reflect the original America. Many National Park Service personnel want it that way. They care deeply, feeling their mission is to encourage us to embrace a lifestyle that treads lightly on the earth, and that doing so adds richness to all of our lives. They ought to be able to defend their park areas from overuse and misuse with a clear conscience. To deplete or degrade the visible physical resource does something to the invisible spirit of place as well."
To further drive home that point, Mr. Frome points to Zane Grey's 1925 book, The Vanishing American, in which "Nophaie most loved to be alone, out in the desert, 'listening to the real sounds of the open and to the whispering of his soul.”
"In short," Mr. Frome concludes in his column, "instead of treating a national park like any other place, the park professionals ought to say, 'If you can’t do without your cellphone or laptop or tablet, don’t come here!'”
Comments
The Puritans seemed to have felt the exact opposite about nature. It was a realm a fallen-ness.
First - your words don't seem to describe your overall position. You seem to be talking about erecting a tower as being misanthropic, although your overall tone seems to be that denying one would be.
Our modern national parks have areas which are primitive by design, but modern technology is heavily used by NPS. They've got state of the art visitor centers using the latest insulating and heating/cooling technologies. They've got brand new photovoltaic solar panels to supplement their electrical needs. At Little Yosemite Valley they've got an outhouse using state of the art computer controlled fans to help break down human waste as well as keep the odors low. Anyone going backpacking is more or less required to use food storage canisters made of modern materials, machined with modern CNC equipment.
I've been out there. Most are wearing modern clothing - mostly state of the art synthetics. They're carrying SPOT beacons, GPS units, microprocessor controlled cameras, UV water sterilizers, chemical water treatments, ceramic water filters, boots made with the latest synthetic materials, etc. Backpackers are carrying solar-powered charging systems to recharge their devices. The climbers going up El Cap are using anodized high-strength aluminum gear, high-tech ropes, and nylon-webbing harnesses. That canoe you mention is probably aluminum, or possibly a plastic kayak designed with the latest computer-aided design software and molded on the latest computer-controlled molding equipment.
The modern world is already out there, and it enables people to visit these places in ways that would have been more difficult 30 years ago. These are developed areas that have mostly been developed for over a hundred years to serve visitors. Not everyone who visits these places wants to leave it all behind. It's certainly not Disneyland out there, but it doesn't have to be devoid of all modern conveniences. We're talking about a cell phone tower in the frontcountry - a place that's already wired up with high-speed fiber optic communications or in the process of being wired up.
I've seen that kind of disguising, and usually the efforts are pretty lame. Most attempts to disguise remind me of bad-looking artificial Christmas trees.
Now this one does it with a bit of panache and humor. I wish someone would actually do this in a real environment rather than just made of Lego pieces:
Not looking in the right places.
http://utilitycamo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pine.jpg
My misanthropy comment was in response to Mr. Clayton's assertion...
I certainly didn't mean to suggest that frontcountry areas of the parks be managed like designated wilderness. But I do think there is a level of urbanity that is not appropropriate in a park setting. Like waiting in a 2 1/2 hour long traffic jam in Yosemite Valley (caused strictly by crowding.) Or walking a trail (the Narrows trail in Zion) that was as crowded as a NY city sidewalk. There is a level of development, and crowding, and noise, and congestion, and commercialism beyond which one struggles to enjoy the natural objects, etc.
Now, of course, one can take steps to avoid such situations- that doesn't make them any more appropriate. The problem with issues like this cell tower is that it is indeed a small thing by itself. Such is the nature of these conditions- they arrive through creeping incrementalism. Each new restaurant, gift shop, parking space, or slight increase in visitation seems relatively harmless, but the cumulative effect leads to a degradation of the park experience.
I don't have a firm opinion on this cell tower- I don't have enough details or context to decide if it is necessary (how primitive or sophisticated the technology is doesn't really matter to me). Deciding what development is necessary, or what level of visitation is appropriate at peak times, is , of course the crux of the debate- a highly subjective matter. Usually the pro-development arguments are framed as "people need" or "people want" grocery stores, restaurants, gift shops, golf courses, showers, cell towers, etc. But will these developments enhance or degrade the "enjoyment" of the landscape? Are they necessary?
I for one am happy to take the small effort necessary to arrive in a park with a full tank of gas, a full larder of food, all the equipment necessary for my trip, and every thing I need to entertain myself. I am also quite willing, even elated, to endure a lottery or reservation system, and maybe not get to visit, if it means I can avoid the type of experiences noted above.
Safety is often used as an excuse for more development- such development may certainly be justified in some cases, but our modern society's risk tolerance has become so incredibly small that significant harm will come to the parks if we try to eliminate every risk everywhere. At some point we need declare the natural world a potentially hazardous place and let visitors accept, and manage a small amoount of risk.
Really, I don't want the last word in this debate, but I have been in Zion National Park until last night. Here, I predict, is what will happen if electronic messaging invades our national parks. Eventually, someone texting will "take out" a family of visitors, just as we "take out" one another on our highways now. Example: The lady on Interstate 15 who nearly ran into me while merging in St. George, even though I had pulled over to let her merge. She was on a cell phone and never "saw" me. Fortunately, I saw in the nick of time that she continued merging into my lane. When people are killed (if they haven't been already), what will the Park Service say? That the cell towers should not have been built? No, that the agency needs more protection rangers to hand out tickets, just as they now hand out speeding tickets all the time. Why? Because the roads were improved and people have enjoyed the "improvements," such as going 60 when the limit is 45. In Yellowstone, 100 large mammals every year pay the price of that. The Park Service's answer? Hand out a leaflet asking visitors to slow down.
Wrong. By design, parks are supposed to exact responsibility from every visitor, even as full access is allowed. The parks don't bend to US; WE bend to the parks, or what we have is exactly what we left behind. But yes, that is postmodern America, right? What the individual wants always goes. I want. ME first. Me, me, me! Whine, whine, whine! I want my cell phone, so the hell with you. If I kill you, it is not my fault. If I kill a bison in the park, well, we have lots. It is your fault (and the bison's) for having gotten in my way. So take a hike and please get out of my way. In the backcountry, you will find all the wilderness you could ever want. Wrong. Wilderness is supposed to begin at the boundary, not where you say the "boundary" is. If I want to see Old Faithful in peace and quiet, you are supposed to allow me that. "Unimpaired" begins at the gate.
As I said, your commentator nearly got taken out by a selfish driver on a cell phone, who merely flipped me off when I beeped my horn. I saved her car and my rental car (and perhaps someone's life), and all she could do was defend her selfishness. Coming to a national park near you--more selfishness and self-indulgence. In that case, you will pardon me for beeping my horn. If the landscape were truly unimpaired, no one should have to. In 1916, that is what our forebears pledged. How far we have come in breaking their pledge, now to forget what the pledge even meant.
Alfred Runte,
By pointing to the hazards of cellphones on the highways, we will also have to admit their utilitiy - and popularity & success - as a safety & rescue tool.
Legions of hikers etc have now been saved, because they had a cellphone with them.
Moms & Dads help their teens into backpacks at the trailhead, kiss them, and confirm; "Got your cellphone"?
Not only are lives saved in the bush, by cellphones, but they spare us much larger numbers of expensive & dangerous searches & rescues. For every cellphone call that sends official responders into the woods, there are 10 or 100 that enable another party (often mom, or sister, or friend) to calm the distressed caller, and assist them over the phone, in resolving their own predicament.
The cellphone has enabled self-rescue to come of age. Management are (belatedly ... sometimes 'kicking & screaming') now embracing this.
Ted
Marmot, We are already well past the point where 'reasonable risk' is tolerated in the national parks or anywhere else....At the point where a single individual is 'at risk', we mobilize heaven and earth to save them....is it preferable that we mobilize massive air and ground searches for an individual thought to be stuck on a remote mountainside...or we provide a means, as Ted Clayton details, where the wayward individual can reasonable secure his own future?
Cellphones are devices with the capacity for both good and not-so-good. We all use them, even those who think they don't belong in the parks. If you, with your full tank of gas and complete larder were to suddenly find yourself needing rescue, I suggest that you would really like to use the device in your pocket to save yourself....