PARKS (CONT)

vice, said: "This radical rewrite stands nearly 100 years of national park stewardship on its head. Under these changes, the sights, sounds, and smells of motorized vehicles would dominate previously quiet parks. No longer would such impacts damage only Yellowstone and a handful of other parks. These rule changes would unleash on our national parks an army of off-road vehicles, dirt bikes, jet skis, powerboats, dune buggies and the like. No seashore, reservoir, forest area or desert patch would be immune from this attack and the result would be devastating: the end of national parks as the last great places where America cherishes the outdoors."

Wade added: "If the Interior Department tells you that this rewrite of the rules is no longer on the table and that it doesn't really reflect what they want to do, my advice would be simple: Don't believe a word of it. Say whatever else you want about it, but this is an incredibly honest document that exposes the true agenda of the people running the Interior Department. Making a few cosmetic changes and pretending to walk away from this draft, won't change a thing. This document is the game plan and they aren't really going to move off what, in fact, is their true agenda."

Today's document release is the second major "leak" by CNPSR in two years of an internal document detailing plans to undercut America's national parks. On March 17, 2004, CNPSR exposed internal NPS memos directing park superintendents to slash summer 2004 park services and then to mislead the news media and public about the cuts, which were to be referred (and only if necessary) as "service level adjustments." The ensuing public uproar led to a widely publicized March 24, 2004 hearing by the House Appropriations Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Key points of the proposed NPS management practice changes are as follows:

• Abandoning the primary mission of the NPS. For almost 90 years, preservation of the Parks has been clearly established as the NPS' primary mission. The NPS and the National Park System were created by Congress in 1916. Congress at that time established that the "fundamental purpose" of the Park System is "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Nonetheless, the proposed changes to NPS management recognize a far more limited mission, one which would recognize preservation as an objective only to the extent of avoiding any "impairment" of the Park System's resources and values. "Impairment" would be defined as referring only to permanent and irreversible damage. Under this new approach, parks could be presumed to be open for exploitation for purposes such as logging, mining and oil & gas exploration. Entire species of animals could be extirpated from a specific park as long as they could possibly be reintroduced at some future point.
  
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• Exposing national parks to extensive new damage. Currently, the managers of national parks are charged with stepping in immediately to protect the parks from any and all real or potential threats - both internal and external. Under the proposed rules, park managers could only take protective steps when "impairment" can be documented and, even then, most likely only if from internal sources. Rogers noted: "It is ludicrous to require a superintendent to wait to take action on resources degradation until 'irreversible' damage can be documented. The old aphorism about closing the barn door after the horse gets out comes to mind."
  
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• Eliminating virtually all limits on motorized access to national parks, both on and off roads and trails. The Interior Department rewrite of the NPS management rules consistently eliminates such phrases in relation to national parks as "classrooms of our heritage," "legacy we leave to future generations," and "warrant the highest standard of protection." Instead, the parks are newly described in a variety of ways consistent with the phrase "repositories of outstanding recreation opportunities". This shift in focus would open national parks to Jet Skis and other noisy and disruptive motorized watercraft. Skiers on the rugged and remote Tioga Trail in Yosemite National Park would be shoved aside by snowmobilers who would be able to rip up the trail for the first time ever.
  
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• Subordinating national parks to the agendas of individual cities and states. The obligation of the National Park Service to serve all Americans would be undercut by the substitution of words that subordinate the broad national interest to narrow local interests. Every reference to NPS "collaboration" with cities and towns near parks has been changed to "cooperation." In this case, "cooperation" would mean joint operation of parks with park neighbors, thereby negating the superintendents' abilities to represent the broad interests of the people of the United States as a whole when those interests do not match narrow local interests, such as gateway communities that may be intent on a Disneyland-like commercialization of "their" national park. Additionally, NPS would be required to obtain the concurrence of state agencies in several instances where the NPS now has clear jurisdiction to act on behalf of all U.S. citizens.
  
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