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
Then call your Senator and tell him to vote for the continuing resolution that was sent up by the House.
Or call your representative in the House and tell them to support the Senate version...;-)
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px; background-color: #ffffff]I find the above a little ironic. :)[/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px; background-color: #ffffff]As for EC, I don't think that telling people how to live their lives is the monopoly of any political current. There seems to be plenty of people on both sides of the aisle that would love nothing more than doing just that.[/size]
I am with Kurt. The Senate version. Aside from that we are planning to go to Smoky Mtn. and Mammoth Cave. I enjoy visitor centers and will assume they would be closed in a Gov't shutdown let alone cave tours. Will I still be able to hike?
Then obviously, having the parks open isn't your priority
While there may be some that fit that bill, the vast majority of conservatives have no interest in forcing how to live your life - unless it negatively impacts the life of others. They may have opinions on how you should live but they have no interest in putting it into law.
Dave, as my latest story notes, even day hikers would be banned from the national parks if they're closed.
Ec, that the far-right factions in the House have dressed up their pitch to increase the debt ceiling with everything from approving the Keystone XL Pipeline and increasing off-shore drilling to blocking the EPA from enforcing greenhouse gas regs demonstrates their intent to hold the country hostage for their own self-interests.
Dear Ecbuck,
Just for the record, the national park idea was founded by conservative Americans, most of them Republicans and most of them rich. You cannot banish me to the backcountry by your kneejerk reaction that only liberals call for social discipline. The whole national park idea is about social discipline, and yes, proper discipline begins at the gate. In the old days, that was understood. An invention does not automaticially become legitimate just because the inventor (or user) insists it should. I like railroads; however, they were banned from the parks as too loud and too intrusive. Those rich Republicans undertook the ban. Railroads might go to the gates, but there they stopped. Nowadays, no one believes in stopping a thing. The exception of course was Grand Canyon, which was not a national park when the Santa Fe Railway arrived. Everywhere else, Congress and the American people drew a line in the sand. This far and no farther.
Railroads accepted that and did their job; unfortunately, the National Park Service stopped doing its job. It widened and straightened roads, so there would be more fatalities; it allowed development of the major parks to run amok.
No one is saying don't come to the parks. All we are saying is accept the discipline that makes the park experience a joy for all.
If that is liberal thinking, I am a liberal, but the history says something else. It is American thinking; it is bipartisan. All true Americans accept their obligation to form a civilization that survives themselves.
As for the moms and dads that send their kids off into the wilderness--confident that they call home if they need help--I remind them that their kids have no business being in the wilderness if they are not prepared to be there in the first place. Just as likely, the phone leaves them with a false sense of security; even with a phone, a rescue still takes time. As in drivers' education, you should know how to change a flat tire; how to steer in a skid; in others words, have the skills necessary to enjoy the privilege.
Again, that is not liberal thought, or conservative thought. It is merely reponsible common sense. When did the Park Service drop common sense--and responsibility? After the culture dropped them first. The agency's excuses began as our excuses, but there it is--why the centennial will be a bust. The Organic Act of 1916 is a blueprint for responsibility that neither the nation nor the agency no longer wants. How can you celebrate anarchy? You can't. When you do, you get exactly what we have now--lowrent behavior, a dissing of the culture, what the academics these days call "deconstruction." As I said before, bring it on. But don't think that the future will forgive us for having destroyed what made us great.