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Legislation Introduced To Let States Manage National Parks, Other Public Lands

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In a move not entirely surprising, U.S. Rep. Don Young of Alaska has proposed legislation to create a mechanism for states to take over management of national parks and other federal lands.

It's not surprising in that a number of states -- Utah, Colorado, Arizona, South Dakota, New York, and Tennessee -- stepped up last week to underwrite the costs of reopening parks in their states during the government shutdown.

As written, the legislation would require a state to put up at least 50 percent of the costs of running the national park in question to have its petition considered by the Interior secretary. If a state provided 55 percent of the costs of operation, it would receive 55 percent of the revenues that park generated. States would not be given title to the land.

States that gain such authority could relinquish it by writing the Interior secretary and asking to be relieved of its authority. The secretary also could void the agreement if the state defaults on payments or is found to have breached its agreement.

Introduced this past Tuesday, the bill has no cosponsors.

Comments

Now Sara - That was very informative - thank you.

It does confirm that the vast wilderness and Wilderness areas like the Alaskan parks have a relatively low deficit compared to their acreage

Two, a large portion of the deficit is represented by a handfull of parks - many of which aren't even "parks" as many would think of them - i.e parkways and the national mall.

Now it would nice to drill down on some of those numbers. Its hard to believe that Yosemite has $400 million of infrastructure to begin with much less that it would need $400 million to maintain it. And the Nachez and Blue Ridge Parkways - is that basically road maintenance?


ecbuck,

From one of the NPS Transportation pages:

Some 90% of all roadway pavement in the parks system is in "fair" to "poor" condition.

28 publicly accessible bridges within the parks transportation system are "structurally deficient"

Approximately 36% of all trails throughout the National Park Service (6,700 miles out of a total of 18,600) are in a "poor" or "seriously deficient" condition


And is "drill down on those numbers" merely a poor choice of words or a more Freudian slip?


From the FY14 Greenbook (pg CONST-34]

"Deferred maintenance of the paved roads and bridges is estimated at $4.7 billion and having a current replacement value of $20 billion. These assets are critical to the NPS mission and are included along with other priority assets in the NPS investment strategies. The Service owns and operates approximately 5,450 paved miles of park roads that are open to the public, the equivalent of 971 paved miles of parking areas, 4,100 miles of unpaved roads that are open to the public, 1,414 bridges, and 63 tunnels."


Ec, I am not that much in the loop. however I do know that all facilities including those in wilderness were surveyed over a three year period, I believe 2007-2010. Actually witnessed some of the work. I believe the data for this is public information, if requested. It needs to said that park budgets are already strained, it takes personnel, xerox time and lots of paper to reproduce this stuff, but some of it maybe on line. One figure I know is that in the concession operated facilities, in particular the Ahwahnee Hotel, the hotel estimated costs for earthquake retrofit exceed 60 million (at least that is what I was told). I can understand your questioning the figures, but overall, having worked up in the park over the past 6 summers, (and 38 years previous to that with a six year break in between), the deterioration of roads, buildings, utilities, sewer lines and treatment plants, water quality treatments, etc. is in much need of upgrade or repair, big time. Much of the employee housing both for the NPS and private sector employees is quite old, some of it dating back to early 1900s, well it is disconcerting to see it. I do not mind responding EC, you ask tough questions but I think you do appreciate the parks. I am sure that some gold platting is involved, but overall I think the park efforts are above board and should be paid attention to, like much of the infrastructure deterioration we are observing nation wide, not only in parks but counties, cities, states.


And is "drill down on those numbers" merely a poor choice of words or a more Freudian slip?

Not a poor choice at all, it is standard nomenclature for someone doing financial analysis.


Deferred maintenance of the paved roads and bridges is estimated at $4.7 billion and having a current replacement value of $20 billion.

Somehow, I think you will get less sympathy for the "parks" if half the deficit is actually rough roads. I think all this points to the fact there just might be too much infrastructure.

Approximately 36% of all trails throughout the National Park Service (6,700 miles out of a total of 18,600) are in a "poor" or "seriously deficient" condition

I have hiked several thousand miles of NPS trails and can't recall a single one I would call in "poor" or "seriously deficient" condition.


Approximately 36% of all trails throughout the National Park Service (6,700 miles out of a total of 18,600) are in a "poor" or "seriously deficient" condition

I believe the NPS. In my experience, this is clearly true.


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