Parks in Peril

red Fagergren is frustrated. As superintendent of the 35,000-acre Bryce Canyon National Park in southwestern Utah, Fagergren oversees one of the national park system's crown jewels. Unique rock formations, panoramic natural vistas and abundant wildlife draw 1.7 million visitors a year to Bryce Canyon, up more than 50 percent since 1991.

But along with visitors come problems for Fagergren and other park superintendents. More people means more cars, vans and tour buses clogging roads, fouling the air and creating a scene not unlike the cities many visitors left behind. During peak summer months, Bryce Canyon has four cars in the park for every parking space.

Equally serious is the increasing number of visitors who book commercial air tours over the parks. Overflight operations at Bryce Canyon alone have more than doubled since 1991. The flights, especially those by helicopters, mar the view and drown out Bryce Canyon's natural quiet, Fagergren says. But, he adds: "I have no power or authority to do anything as long as they don't touch the ground. We should be able to regulate those flights. Most people come here for the solitude and natural sounds."

Too many planes and cars symbolize the mounting problems facing the nation's 376 national parks, battlefields, seashores, recreation areas, parkways and other National Park Service units. Years of inadequate funding and misplaced priorities have left many parks with ill-functioning sewage and water systems, historic buildings whose roofs leak and walls are crumbling, and archaeological sites, historical artifacts and wildlife that have not been documented, cataloged or monitored.

Some parks have been forced to curtail programs for visitors, cut the number of rangers and other staff, and shorten hours. The number of seasonal rangers at Badlands National Park in South Dakota has dropped from 13 to four. Fort Donelson National Battlefield in Tennessee has eliminated its daily history program. And the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow home in Massachusetts is now closed from December through April.

Other parks are plagued by surrounding development and air pollution from nearby factories and power plants. Still others face fights to preserve the natural ambiance from visitors who use snowmobiles, jet water skis and other motorized vehicles.

"We have shortchanged our parks for too long," charged John Adams, the Natural Resources Defense Council's executive director, in releasing a joint NRDC-National Trust for Historic Preservation report last summer on the status of the national parks. "Many of the parks' resources are deteriorating, and in some cases disappearing, without anyone knowing about it."

In part, the national parks are suffering from their own success. Visits nationwide now total 275 million a year, a figure that exceeds the population of the United States. Park attendance, which has increased from 198 million in 1980 and 79 million in 1960, is expected to top 300 million by 2000.

At the same time, park funding has been insufficient to address the problems in the face of increasing numbers of visitors. While governmentwide appropriations have doubled since 1977 to $1.6 billion for fiscal 1997, the Park Service's budget actually dropped $635 million during the same period in constant dollars. Its budget is half the amount spent on federal prisons, according to the NRDC-National Trust report.

As a result, the National Park Service has a backlog of $5.6 billion in maintenance and repair projects, 40 percent of them roads and other transportation problems, says Denis Galvin, one of two NPS deputy directors. Congress gave the Park Service $156 million for construction for fiscal 1998, but more than half the amount was funds NPS had not requested. Those funds were earmarked for new visitor centers and other projects added by members of Congress.

Fortunately, the outlook for resolving at least some of the national parks' problems are improving. New rules are being drafted to better regulate overflights. New transit systems are being planned at three national parks to cut the number of cars, vans and buses. And new sources of money are now available-with others proposed-to undertake capital improvements.

Up in the Air

Tourist overflights are "the most difficult and contentious issue I've had to deal with in my career," says Robert Arnberger, superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. "This is a very complex issue involving big money, two government agencies with markedly different views and an undeveloped science of acoustic measurement."

No one knows exactly how many air tours fly over the national parks or how many people they carry. The Park Service estimates there are at least 100,000 flights a year over the Grand Canyon alone, up from 35,000 in 1986, says Wesley Henry, NPS' national wilderness coordinator. The 33 tour operators at the Grand Canyon generate an estimated $250 million in income a year, little of which goes to the park. (Operators are supposed to pay NPS $25 per flight, but until recently few did.)

The problem, says NPS' Galvin, is that regulating air traffic over national parks "is not within our authority. That's [the Federal Aviation Administration's] jurisdiction. We have to get their agreement before we can limit the number of planes, where they go or when they fly."

The two agencies have very different views of how to regulate flights. The FAA "wants to control noise [at national parks] like they do at National Airport by setting acceptable decibel levels," Galvin says. "We want people to be able to hear a waterfall." Instead, as Henry puts it, the parks are suffering from the "sound wars."

"We recognize that air tours over parks can provide a service to visitors in terms of sightseeing, interpretation and access," says Destry Jarvis, NPS' assistant director for external affairs. "At issue is our ability to manage this use by allowing it where appropriate and prohibiting or restricting it where it is not compatible with preserving natural quiet."

How bad is the sound? At Bryce Canyon, resource manager Richard Bryant says visitors can hear an aircraft nearly 20 percent of the time. Noise levels around the park average 36.4 decibels. That's not real loud, Bryant admits, but it is twice the level heard when no planes are flying overhead. A nearby helicopter can raise the noise level to 70 decibels.

Last year, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced a bill to require the Interior Department to recommend ways FAA could restore and preserve natural quiet in parks affected by overflights. If the bill passes, FAA would have to adopt and enforce a plan based on the recommendations.

Last year FAA and NPS jointly created a National Parks Overflights Working Group, made up of representatives of tour operators, the airline industry, environmental and community groups, and Indian tribes. In December, the group recommended the creation of a process under which the FAA, with advice and analysis from the Park Service, could restrict overflights based on air tour management plans. The plans would be drawn up for individual parks by the park staff, assisted by NPS and FAA officials in Washington plus local stakeholders.

The working group is now drafting a proposed rule to be published by FAA later this spring. But it is still unclear whether the FAA has the authority to limit flights based on environmental or noise rather than safety concerns.

Meanwhile, the FAA banned overflights at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado last year after local groups raised safety concerns. In response, several air tour operators went to court seeking to force the FAA to lift the ban. The agency also signed an agreement with park officials and tour operators to keep helicopters from flying over a bird sanctuary and other sensitive areas at Haleakala National Park in Hawaii. The FAA has further ordered air tour operators to stay at least 500 feet horizontally from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York.

Separately, NPS and FAA are developing a set of rules to further restrict overflights at the Grand Canyon. FAA published proposed rules in 1996 that it says would cap the number of flights over the park, limit air tour hours, revise routes to avoid flying over certain Indian tribal lands and require operators to report to the agency where, when and how many people they fly.

Critics charge the proposed rules will not, in fact, cap the number of flights, since there are about 100 more planes flying over Grand Canyon than FAA estimated. Some of those planes do not fly as often as they could under the proposed FAA rules, so operators could continue to add flights.

Gridlock on the Ground

Whatever happens in the air, the Park Service also plans major changes on the ground. The Interior and Transportation departments announced plans last year to ban most cars, vans and tour buses from three popular national parks in the West and replace them with transit systems that would take people into and around the parks.

"I have a vision . . . [that] we will be giving our grandchildren a chance to spend time in these magnificent natural landscapes with as good or better a quality of experience than we have today," said Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in announcing the plans for Grand Canyon, Zion and Yosemite national parks late last year. If successful at the three test parks, similar systems may be developed at Acadia National Park in Maine, the national parks in Alaska and Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California.

Under the plans, day visitors would leave their vehicles at transit centers outside the parks. They would board a light-rail trolley at the Grand Canyon (the first fixed-rail system in a national park) and open-sided trams or buses at Zion and Yosemite to enter the parks. Shuttle buses would then carry them from point to point within the parks. Visitors with reservations at park lodges and overnight campsites would still be able to drive into the parks.

"We have 4,000 to 5,000 cars a day from April to October," says Donald Falvey, superintendent of Zion National Park in Utah. Half of them drive up a narrow, six-mile long, dead-end road to see Zion Canyon with its spectacular rock formations and pastel colors. Only 400 parking places await those visitors, often causing traffic jams and leading many frustrated drivers to park illegally along roadsides.

"We will eliminate 80 to 85 percent of those cars," with the planned transit system, Falvey says. "We will be providing a fundamentally different way for people to see and understand the park."

Falvey estimates the Zion plan will cost $23 million to build parking lots and transit centers in the park and in nearby Springdale, Utah, as well as to buy a fleet of non-polluting, propane-powered buses. Congress has already appropriated $11.4 million for the project and authorized the use of $4.6 million from park entrance fees. Another $11 million will come from the state of Utah to improve transportation within Springdale. Construction is expected to start this year with the system up and running-and most cars banned-in 2000.

Building a light rail and shuttle system will cost more at the Grand Canyon. NPS estimates costs will total $90 million to $110 million, Galvin says. The Park Service will build the transit centers and the in-park system, but hopes to attract a private contractor to build and run the light-rail system. No NPS money has been budgeted for the project. Still, park superintendent Arnberger says the system will be working by 2002 and moving 4,000 people an hour by 2010.

At Yosemite, it's unclear how much a transit system will cost or when it will be built, Galvin says, because of a dispute over where to put the parking lots. Local environmentalists and business interests oppose NPS plans to locate the lots in Yosemite Valley, the park's main attraction.

"We're willing to accommodate [the local groups]," Galvin says. He hopes that a transit system will be working and most cars banned from Yosemite by 2005.

Funds From Fees

To help pay for the Grand Canyon transit system, the Park Service will earmark $5 of the $20 entrance fee charged visitors. Until last year, such a local use for park fees would have been illegal. Parks were only allowed to keep 15 percent of fees to cover the administrative costs of collecting them; the rest was returned to the Treasury Department's general fund.

Under a demonstration program Congress approved in 1996, however, the Park Service was authorized to increase entrance, campground and other fees at 100 of the most popular national parks and other NPS attractions-and to keep much of the fees for their use. As a result, most entrance fees doubled from $10 to $20 per vehicle. At Yosemite, they went up from $5 to $20.

The Park Service takes 20 percent of the money to give to NPS units like Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the North Carolina-Tennessee border and the Lincoln Memorial that do not charge entrance fees. Great Smoky Mountains-the most frequently visited national park-is prohibited from collecting entrance fees by the law that created the park.

The three-year test program has increased park revenue nationwide from $70 million in 1996 before it went into effect to $110 million in 1997 and a projected $140 million this year, Galvin says. Most of the money will pay for maintenance and repair. "It will help us get a start in reducing the [$5.6 billion] backlog," he adds.

Other proposed sources of income may further help the Park Service maintain its facilities, repair buildings, and restore staff and programs. The NRDC-National Trust report urged Congress to authorize the Park Service to issue park bonds that would be fully guaranteed by the federal government and to join with state and local governments in issuing other bonds. McCain has introduced a bill to use bonds to help finance the Grand Canyon transit system by adding a $2 surcharge for park visitors.

For his part, Galvin does not think the fee, transit or air tour changes will alter the number of people who visit Grand Canyon or the other national parks, a fear expressed by some park critics. Only weather, gas availability and international monetary exchange rates seem to affect park visitation, he says.

Moreover, visitor surveys conducted at 11 national parks in 1997 by University of Minnesota researcher David Lime found most people were willing to pay increased fees if the money were used to improve the park where the money was collected or the park system as a whole.

Improved transit systems, restricted air tours and new sources of money will not solve all of the Park Service's problems, NPS officials and outside observers agree. Air pollution remains a concern at Acadia and Great Smoky Mountains national parks. Development outside park boundaries threatens the resources inside at Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Everglades national parks.

But the improvements will help. "If we could better control the flights and reduce the number of cars in the park," Bryce Canyon's Fagergren says, "we would alleviate a lot of our problems."

Jeffrey P. Cohn is a freelance writer who covers environmental and other issues for Government Executive.