No friend of parks
Rick Smith
Norfolk (NE) Daily News
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Letter to the Editor
National park not wanted
SPARKS — Your recent articles in the Norfolk Daily News on Aug. 20, 21 and 22 about the “Great Plains National Park” has generated a lot of table talk.
The dream to create 175,000 acres for a national park is almost laughable, but it’s this kind of liberal thinking that is the most dangerous. These articles mislead people about the true cost of taking agricultural land out of production and the tax base. If you take 130,000 acres of land off the tax roll, who pays for the roads maintenance? Who funds our schools? Who pays for the mandated programs? Which downtown businesses will close their doors because of the number of ranches and farms no longer in production?
To think that this land would stay the same after millions of people come to see the beautiful Niobrara River Valley would be a fallacy. The fragile Sandhills are like no other place and have taken years to convert to what it is today. What do you think the Sandhills area would look like after miles of new roads are constructed and hundreds of over flowing dumpsters of garbage and thousands of campers? Would it be the scenic river anymore?
lt’s taken years for the farmers and ranchers to learn practices to sustain the resources of the Sandhills. Do you think the National Park Service would be able to manage it in that same manner?
That is the one thing that government agencies cannot reproduce — the ties to the land that farmers and ranchers built over the years that their families lived on the land. lt’s a balance between family and the land. If l have to tell you what that means, you’ll never get the point to this response letter.
My wife’s family ranch would be in the crosshair of this dream. We have no interest of selling or giving our land to the State of Nebraska or the U.S. Government for a national park.
Eminent domain was mentioned. Is that in the best interest for every citizen in the State of Nebraska? It just shows you how crazy this is. We have not been approached by any of the supporters of The Great Plains National Park or rural development branch of U.S.D.A. to ask if our ranch is for sale.
Last year was one of the slowest river seasons we’ve had in over 20 years. There is no way that 60,000 people floated the Niobrara River, as was claimed by the person who has the idea for this park.
The annual river use with people launching at Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge Cornell launch site was right at 32,000 people in 1997. River use in 2018 was under 5,000 for the year. These numbers are reported to the refuge by river outfitters that have special use permits and private people that access the river at the Cornell Bridge that get their river passed from the lron Ranger. The decrease in numbers of people accessing the river at Fort Niobrara launch site came about because of a shift in refuge policies and wilderness land management. ln fact there is a regulation of how many people outfitters can put on the Niobrara River on a weekend, so the noise levels and disturbance to the wildlife is minimal. You can read the full 200-plus page document to get the reasoning behind the shift of people using the Fort Niobrara Wildlife Refuge.
The articles written in the Norfolk Daily News painted this picture of destination of a national park as the only way to protect the resources of the Sandhills so millions of people can come to see the Niobrara River Valley and the Great Plains.
The Nebrasla Legislature is trying to work on property tax relief. How would this be possible with 130,000 acres taken off the tax roll? No one is stopping visitors to Cherry County. The tourism board is working hard to get the word out that we are open for business.
In my opinion we do not need another national park. The land is in the good hands of the farmers and ranchers. Maybe, just maybe, the state’s new slogan is correct, “Nebraska, honestly it’s not for everyone.”
Thank you.
ED HEINERT
Rick Smith
5264 N. Fort Yuma Trail
Tucson, AZ 85750
Tel: 520-529-7336
Cell: 505-259-7161
Email: rsmit...@comcast.net