The government shutdown is nearing its one month mark, and the pains are being felt across the nation, including inside national parks.
Retired national park leaders are fearful of how the bare-boned staffing and steady stream of park visitors might impact the long term well-being of these natural wonders. In response they penned an open letter to the Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum warning him of what’s to come.
“This summer, well before this shutdown, our parks were already being pushed to the brink by funding and staffing cuts,” the letter says, citing that parks had already been “significantly strained” prior to federal workers being furloughed. “The shutdown has made this bad situation far worse.”
Former staffers are demanding Burgum close the parks both for the safety of the visitors and for the long-term safety of the parks.
In a response to Daily Kos regarding the letter, a DOI spokesperson pointed responsibility toward Democrats for the shutdown, writing: “The Department recognizes the serious consequences that a lapse in federal appropriations, caused by Congressional Democrats, has on the National Park System.”
But when it comes to shutting down the parks for the sake of preservation, the DOI disagreed.
“When national parks completely shut down, the impact on surrounding communities is swift and devastating,” they wrote, adding, “Local economies that rely on park tourism lose tens of millions of dollars each day as visitors are turned away, hotels sit empty, and restaurants and tour operators close their doors.”
And though local economies are a concern, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks believes that shutting the doors to the federal lands will prevent future incidents.
On Oct. 12, a wildfire broke out in California’s Joshua Tree National Park that burned 72 acres. And in Yosemite, people taking advantage of the short staffing have snuck onto dangerous, permit-only trails while others are illegally BASE jumping from El Capitan, which is an illegal sport where one parachutes from the iconic rock formation
In a statement to Daily Kos, Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition, who spoke with current workers, said that staff morale is low as parks operate in reportedly confused and unclean conditions.
Human feces has been found outside of closed bathrooms, while wildfire monitoring—which may or may not have been in effect during the Joshua Tree fire—has been limited.
Earlier this year, Trump offered a buyout to federal workers, including those staffing our national parks. At the time, more than 1,800 workers took the offer, according to The New York Times.
And for those who are left, the president has sought the public’s help in snitching on those who don’t align with his beliefs.
Related | Trump team claims national parks are ‘thriving’ amid GOP shutdown
As of Thursday, Congress does not have a vote scheduled to end the shutdown, but they did vote on a bill allocating funds to those federal employees currently working, including military members and park rangers. That bill was shot down.
“It’s nothing more than another tool for Trump to hurt federal workers and American families and to keep this shutdown going for as long as he wants,” Schumer said on the floor. “We will not give Donald Trump a license to play politics with people’s livelihoods. That’s why we oppose this.”
So as national parks continue to go without staffing or paid federal workers, the calls to shutter those doors grow.
“Our parks don’t run by themselves,” the former national park leaders wrote. “The dedicated staff of the National Park Service (NPS) keep them clean, safe, and functioning. And as these latest, and sadly predictable, incidents clearly demonstrate, our parks cannot operate without them.”
