America's ten most endangered parks revealed
Bob Smith
Widespread Problems
Air Pollution, Development, Insufficient Funding, Administration
Policies Threaten Parks
http://www.npca.org/endangeredparks
Washington, D.C. - Air pollution, abusive use of motorized vehicles,
years of inadequate funding, damaging development on lands adjacent to
parks, and harmful Bush Administration policies are among the troubles
besetting national parks named to the fifth annual National Parks
Conservation Association's (NPCA) America's Ten Most Endangered
National Parks list. Released today, the list includes five new parks
and five former listees still plagued by persistent problems.
"Designation as a national park alone doesn't protect our
parks," said
NPCA senior vice president Ronald J. Tipton. "Parks also need
strong
support from the president and Congress. The Bush Administration needs
to halt its attacks on national parks and provide the protections our
nation's treasures need."
Administration actions that damage parks include changes to the Clean
Air Act that will allow outdated smokestack industries to continue
operating without modern pollution controls, regulations that could
lead to new road-building in national parks, and failure to follow up
adequately on campaign promises for better park funding.
"An increasing number of the Administration's actions are
directly
harming our national parks," Tipton said. "For an
Administration that
pledged to ‘restore and renew' the parks, this is particularly
distressing. The American people need actions that demonstrate the
pledge was more than just campaign spin."
Parks on this year's list, in alphabetical order with their biggest
threats, are:
· Big Thicket National Preserve (Texas): Sale of private lands
could
fragment and destroy wildlife habitat by promoting haphazard
development along park borders; dam proposals could alter much of the
preserve's unique wildlife habitat;
· Denali National Park and Preserve (Alaska): Proposals to open
pristine wilderness to motorized access such as snowmobiles will harm
the park; a new governor and a pro-development congressional
delegation may approve a damaging and unnecessary new route into the
park;
· Everglades National Park (Florida): Lack of Park Service
input into
management plans, inadequate restoration plans, and ensuring
sufficient funding for restoration stand out among significant
concerns;
· Glacier National Park (Montana): Insufficient funding
cripples park
protection; development jeopardizes park resources; global warming
threatens park glaciers;
· Great Smoky Mountains National Park (North
Carolina/Tennessee):
Pollution from coal-fired power plants threatens the health of park
visitors, plants, and wildlife and diminishes scenic views;
Administration rollback of clean-air protections compounds threats;
· Joshua Tree National Park (California): A new city may sprout
on a
strip of private land between the park and a nearby nature preserve,
fracturing critical wildlife corridors, degrading already poor air
quality, and straining dwindling aquifers;
· Ocmulgee National Monument (Georgia): One of the largest
archeological collections in the National Park System is decaying as a
result of insufficient funding; a proposed highway could cut off park
lands and destroy biological and cultural resources;
· Shenandoah National Park (Virginia): Pollution endangers
plants,
animals, and scenic vistas; non-native invasive plants and insects
damage native vegetation;
· Virgin Islands National Park (U.S. Virgin Islands):
Insufficient
funding jeopardizes fragile coral reefs and declining fish
populations; a proposed luxury resort could destroy critical wildlife
habitat and cause pollution; and
· Yellowstone National Park (Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming):
Snowmobile
use threatens the health and experience of visitors and staff,
diminishes air quality, and jeopardizes wildlife; inadequate funding
impairs resource-management and visitor services; park bison are
harassed by snowmobiles and killed by Montana officials when wandering
off park lands in search of food.
Chronic air pollution continues to envelop Great Smoky Mountains
National Park, returning the park to the list for the fifth
consecutive year. Pollution also threatens Shenandoah and Joshua Tree
national parks, both new to this year's list. Pollution from aging
smokestacks and from motor vehicles plagues parks across the country,
creating ozone that threatens humans and plants, acid rain that sours
streams and soils, and soot that triggers 30,000 premature human
deaths yearly and diminishes scenic views.
Development and urban encroachment also plague many national parks, as
illustrated by two parks new to the list: Big Thicket and Virgin
Islands. In Texas, private forest lands that surround the preserve are
for sale. If sold for non-preservation uses, resulting habitat
fragmentation and degradation from possible clear-cutting and
sprawling development along widened U.S. 69 could irrevocably damage
one of the country's first national preserves. In the Virgin Islands,
private lands on St. John could be clear-cut and graded for a luxury
resort, destroying not just views the park was created to protect but
also forests critical to native and migratory birds. Displaced soils
can pollute park waters, smothering fragile coral reefs.
Parks delisted this year, and the reasons for their removal, are:
· Big Bend National Park (Texas): A conservation trust plans to
purchase water rights from willing irrigators to maintain instream
flows, and a U.S./Mexico work group plans to restore native vegetation
within and upstream of the park;
· Big Cypress National Preserve (Florida): Big Cypress, listed
last
year with Everglades National Park, was removed because the Bush
Administration has promised to buy mineral rights there from a company
that planned to build exploratory wells and use dynamite to find oil
deposits;
· Federal Hall National Memorial (New York): the House of
Representatives and the Senate Appropriations Committee in December
approved the largest increase ever for the operating needs of parks
such as Federal Hall;
· Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (Alaska): the park is
conducting an environmental impact study for vessel quotas and
operating requirements in the park;
· Mojave National Preserve (California): a proposed private
groundwater storage and delivery system was rejected by Southern
California's Metropolitan Water District; and
· Valley Forge National Historical Park (Pennsylvania): the Park
Service is negotiating to buy private lands set aside for development
and, with the state transportation department, is deploying traffic to
improve park protection.
"The only way to preserve national parks is to address park
threats,"
said NPCA president Thomas C. Kiernan. "By worsening air quality
in
the parks, minimal follow-through on park funding, and overall
weakening of many environmental laws, the Bush Administration has
shown that it is not yet a friend of the national parks. The American
people must pressure the Administration and its allies in Congress to
protect and restore America's precious national parks."
NPCA encourages the public to visit
http://www.eparks.org/endangeredparks to
learn more and to take action
to protect America's Ten Most Endangered National Parks.
# # #
NPCA - Protecting Parks for Future Generations®
Founded in 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association is
America's only private, nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated
solely to protecting, preserving, and enhancing the National Park
System.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030114/ap_on_go_ot/endangered_national_parks_1
WASHINGTON - Air pollution, motorized vehicles, and nearby
development plans threaten some of the nation's treasured national
parks, adding to pressures from money woes and Bush administration
policies, a park advocacy group says.
The National Parks Conservation Association on Tuesday released its
annual list of "America's Ten Most Endangered National
Parks," which includes some reprised from previous years because
of what the group calls persistent problems.
"Designation as a national park alone doesn't protect our
parks," NPCA senior vice president Ronald J. Tipton said.
"Parks also need strong support from the president and
Congress."
The list includes Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, where
nearby private land sales could encroach on wildlife habitat; Denali
National Park and Preserve in Alaska, where wilderness could be
opened to motorized access and a new route approved into the park,
and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and
Tennessee, threatened by air pollution.
It also includes Joshua Tree National Park in California, where an
adjacent new city may sprout; Shenandoah National Park in Virginia,
facing air pollution and invasive species; and Virgin Islands
National Park, troubled by fragile coral reefs and declining fish
populations.
Parks that made the list this year and last are Everglades National
Park in Florida, with questions about management and funding; Glacier
National Park in Montana, because of development, infrastructure
problems and global warming (news - web sites); Ocmulgee National
Monument in Georgia, threatened by a decaying archaeological
collection and a proposed highway; and Yellowstone National Park in
Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, with air pollution and noise from
snowmobiles.
Elaine Sevy, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, said the
Bush administration appreciates the group's efforts to bring
attention to park problems.
But she said the administration but does not agree with all the
group's findings, such as snowmobiles at Yellowstone, which the
administration believes can be safely managed using the latest
technology.
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