Slashed budgets hinder Park Service's mission

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. -- Ed Forner is 8,000 feet above the vast, sunburned desert. Stomach-dropping mountain ranges unfurl outside the tiny plane's cockpit, each more spectacular than the last: Panamint, Inyo, Last Chance, Sierra.

But Forner is not really looking. Sometimes he can't see the wild landscape he's charged with protecting for the roadblocks that Washington keeps throwing in his way, he said. "All I see are stop signs!" he shouted over the engine's whine.

Forner has been a National Park Service ranger for 29 years. He loves his work, considers it a privilege to serve both the public and the land. But he is fed up. And he's not alone.

Millions of visitors a year hear friendly rangers banter about prehistory at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska or geology at Utah's Zion National Park. The crisp green-and-gray uniforms declare that all is right in this nationwide realm of 387 taxpayer-financed battlefields, cemeteries, ruins, seashores, parkways, preserves, scenic rivers, trails, and parks. Out of earshot, however, many employees complain about slashed budgets and staffs, and say they fear recrimination if they don't toe the line.

At Death Valley, all hands pitch in to drive the ambulance or firetrucks or do countless other chores. Before heading to town, 58 miles away, a staffer asked around for video or grocery requests. When a relative is sick or dies, employees donate vacation days to their bereaved colleague.

Beneath the camaraderie lies a devotion to "the mission," enshrined in the congressional Organic Act of 1916 that created the park service. Any ranger anywhere will rattle it off like the Ten Commandments: "Which purpose 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 . . . as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

Yet many complain that their mission is being undercut. "Any park superintendent who says the national parks aren't getting slighted isn't worth their . . . salt," said J.T. Reynolds, 57, superintendent at Death Valley National Park, a 35-year parks veteran.

He points to evidence: Crumbling ceiling tile is falling on visitors' heads. The huge Ansel Adams prints that graced the visitor center walls have been pulled down because of ugly stains from spring rains. To battle proposed development on the park's doorstep that could suck dry its fragile water supply, Reynolds is borrowing biologists from other agencies. Death Valley is down 42 positions over the past several years, with 106 left.

Many staff at other parks decline to speak on the record, citing the firing of US Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers in December. Three days after a newspaper story quoted Chambers about budget woes, the park service suspended her and banned her from speaking to reporters. Days later she was terminated. The decision is being reviewed.

Last month a memo advised some national parks to trim hours quietly during the upcoming busy summer season, but to avoid using the word "cuts" to minimize public outcry, instead substituting "service level adjustments."

"George Orwell wrote about that in '1984,' " said Death Valley maintenance worker Matt MacIsaac.

Park rangers are still "paid in sunsets," and there is still the adrenaline rush of backcountry rescues. But years of shrinking budgets, topped by a push to contract out many park-service jobs, seem to have changed the collective mood.

A new study by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group for the national parks, argues that successive presidents and Congress have underfunded the parks' operating costs by an estimated $600 million annually during the past decade. National Park Service Director Fran Mainella has said President Bush's budget request of $2.4 billion for the agency for next year represents a 4 percent increase. But critics say that will not begin to cover total costs.

Others say the National Park Service has always been underfunded, and that at least now money is being put into capital projects. In Sequoia National Park, for example, funding to repair 11 miles of road came through a few years ago. At Yosemite, "proud partners" such as Ford, Kodak, and Chevron have paid for park projects.