PRESIDENT BUSH is petting fish. Interior Secretary
Dirk Kempthorne is hugging trees. Everything is going to be just ducky in our
wetlands. It's a green revolution in the most arid administration in our
lifetime, the political equivalent of seeding the Sahara.
In the last month, the administration has sounded like
its main lobbyists were not Exxon but the Sierra Club. Three weeks ago,
Kempthorne announced 800 miles of new hiking, biking, boat, and historical
trails. Last Thursday, President Bush announced creation of the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, spanning the equivalent distance of
Boston to St. Louis.
Bush complimented the environmentalists who attended.
One of them was filmmaker Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of legendary marine
ecologist Jacques Cousteau. In April, Jean-Michel showed the president and
first lady Laura Bush his PBS documentary on the damage being done to the
islands. It is a big day when an environmentalist has a movie night at the
White House, especially since the film aired on PBS. A Republican-led House
committee last week proposed a $95 million cut for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting. Bush has proposed his own massive cuts for PBS funding.
The next day, Kempthorne, the former governor of
Idaho, announced that the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission had approved
projects and American and Canadian partnerships that will allow the US Fish and
Wildlife Service to restore more than 87,000 acres of North American wetlands.
On Monday, environmentalists rubbed their eyes in disbelief as Kempthorne
ditched plans by the previous secretary, Gale Norton, that would have softened
up the national parks for commercial development.
``When there is a conflict between conserving
resources unimpaired for future generations and the use of those resources,
conservation will be predominant," Kempthorne said. ``That is the heart of
these policies and the lifeblood of our nation's commitment to care for these
special places and provide for their enjoyment."
Kempthorne's revised draft of park management was
almost a kind of touchy-feely Teddy Roosevelt with its promises of strict rules
on snowmobiles and other noisy motorized recreational equipment. ``Many park
visitors have certain expectations they will hear as part of their experience .
. . ," the draft says, ``such as wind rustling leaves, elk bugling, waves
crashing on a beach." It said, ``Park resources should be passed on to future
generations in a better condition than currently exists."
The ultimate proof will be the resources behind the
rhetoric. Even as Bush and Kempthorne made their announcements, the Associated
Press ran a feature showing how earlier neglect by this administration has the
parks slowly withering away. The proposed 2007 Bush budget would cover only 70
percent of anticipated park payrolls.
Yosemite managers say it is 32 percent underfunded,
warning in a recent memo that ``irreplaceable natural and cultural resources
will be placed at risk," such as ``maintaining historic architecture and
controlling invasive plant and animal species." Death Valley superintendent
J.T. Reynolds told the AP, ``Most visitors do not realize that park resources
have been under threat from deterioration, vandalism, neglect, and rot for some
time. We put up a good front and try to keep high visitor-use areas clean and
neat. Even this facade is fading due to lack of appropriate resources."
In March, the federal Government Accountability Office
published a report that translates into the parks slipping behind in a game of
catch-up. Funding for cyclical maintenance and repair increased from $478
million to $641 million from 2001 to 2005. But the backlog of deferred
maintenance in the parks is an estimated $5 billion. Funding for daily
operations rose only from $903 million to $1.03 billion in 2005, a figure that
represented a slight decline when adjusted for inflation.
Park rangers usually keep their lips buttoned about
this while working. But on the same day that Bush announced the Hawaiian
aquatic monument, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, which claims
a membership of 515 with a total of 15,000 years on the job, published a
scathing review of services that await visitors this summer.
``Forget about cutting the flesh or any fat," said
Bill Wade, chairman of the coalition's executive council and former
superintendent of Shenandoah National Park. ``We are now cutting deeply into
the sinews and bones of our national parks." It is a great day when Bush pets
fish. It will be a greater day when he pampers all of the parks.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail
address is jackson@globe.com.
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