National parks need better funding

Remember those television commercials in the early ’90s that showed an egg frying in a pan as the announcer warned, “This is your brain on drugs”? The message was simple enough, yet it was a powerful reminder.

Now imagine your national park, Acadia, without wildlife, without educational programs, without clean bathrooms: This is your national park operating without the funding it needs. Acadia National Park is $7.3 million or 53 percent underfunded each year by the U.S. Congress.

Research conducted by the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Park Service has revealed that the national parks are operating on average with only two-thirds the funding needed, affecting parks from Gettysburg to the Grand Canyon, from Acadia to Yellowstone. Across the 386-unit national park system, plant and wildlife species are disappearing. Historic structures are crumbling. Archaeological sites are threatened. Educational programs are cut. Rangers are few and far between. Unless the national park system receives greater support, these national treasures will continue to deteriorate. We cannot take our national parks for granted.

Friends of Acadia and dedicated volunteers have made significant investments in Acadia. But those investments must by augmented by funds appropriated annually by Congress for the park’s daily operating needs. Day-to-day funding gaps include all the basic amenities an Acadia visitor might take for granted: trail markers, enough rangers, clean restrooms, protected wildlife (including the necessary plant and wildlife surveys done by park staff to ensure that these species are counted and protected), trail maintenance-such as removing tree limbs that hang precariously over hiking trails – these are a few examples of basic operating needs at Acadia that aren’t being funded adequately.

Acadia National Park is the most visited natural destination in the state of Maine. At Acadia, 121 employees do the work of 230, according to documented analyses. Acadia gives Maine 3,300 jobs and $130 million in cash every year. If Acadia’s operating needs were fully funded, an additional 107 jobs would be created for the Mount Desert Island region. Such a significant economic generator for Down East Maine deserves to be rewarded by Congress. It’s a good economic investment.

Hope is not all lost. More than 300 organizations, businesses, trade associations, government agencies and other nonpartisan supporters of national parks have joined the Americans for National Parks coalition. The 23 organizations and businesses in Maine that support full funding of Acadia include: Acadia Corp., Bangor Convention and Visitors Bureau, Bar Harbor Banking and Trust Co., Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce, Best Western Black Bear Inn, Bicycle Coalition of Maine, Chickadee Creek Stillroom, Criterion Theater, Friends of Acadia, Hancock Trustees of Public Reservations, Havana Restaurant, Hinckley Marine Insurance, Holiday Inn (Bangor), The Jackson Laboratory, MDI Historical Society, Maine Office of Tourism, Maine Tourism Association, Maine Tourism Commission, Rupununi Restaurant, Schooner Victory Chimes, Town of Bar Harbor, Town of Mt. Desert, Alpha Gamma Rho (University of Maine). The goal of the coalition is to urge the U.S. Congress to fully fund the national parks.

Congress deserves credit for the experimental fee demonstration program at 100 national park sites, allowing these parks to keep 80 percent of entry fees to work on backlog maintenance projects. President Bush also made a campaign pledge to direct $4.9 billion toward the maintenance backlog. Both efforts deserve applause, but the annual operating budget of the National Park Service still falls $600 million short of what it needs. The present national park system receives one-tenth of a penny from each tax dollar. In order to fund the national parks fully, this would mean increasing that amount to two-tenths of a cent from each tax dollar. Letting our national parks go to waste, however, comes at too high a cost for us to afford.

The Acadia Full Funding Coalition has the support of the entire Maine delegation; the coalition would like to thank Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, Gov.-elect John Baldacci and Rep. Tom Allen. Rep.-elect Mike Michaud has signaled his support, too. The Maine Legislature passed a resolution in March 2002 supporting full Congressional funding for Acadia National Park.

What’s to do? If your organization or business would like to join the Acadia Full Funding Coalition, a project of Friends of Acadia and Americans for National Parks, please contact Stephanie Clement at Friends of Acadia, at 288-3340 or stephanie@friendsofacadia.org. Or you may log onto www.americansfornationsparks.org to learn more about the national coalition and on-going campaign to fully fund the national parks. Thirdly, please share your own feelings about national parks with President Bush so he knows that Americans still value our national parks.

Leah Stetson is a graduate student from midcoast Maine pursuing a masters degree in human ecology at College of the Atlantic. She is currently employed as an intern with Americans for National Parks in Bar Harbor through Friends of Acadia.