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Monday, June 6, 2011

In State Parks, the Sharpest Ax Is the Budget’s By William YARDLEY


 Deception Pass State Park, Wash. — As the summer season gets under way, budget-strapped state parks across the country are pursuing creative and sometimes controversial solutions simply to stay open. Many are imposing steep new fees, leaning ever more heavily on volunteers and, in one ominous effort to raise money, even pushing to drill for oil and gas beneath hiking trails and picnic pavilions.


                                                          Matt Wallis/Skagit Valley Herald, via Associated Press
 Deception Pass State Park spans two islands in the Puget Sound. Starting July 1, Washington state parks will charge admission.


 The vast majority of states have cut park financing, often significantly, since the economic downturn took full hold in 2008, and some were cutting long before that. Some parks are closing altogether; Gov. Jerry Brown of California in recent days announced plans to permanently close 70 of the state’s 278 parks this fall. Even where parks remain open, the compromises they make to do so are often uncomfortable.


                                                                                              Michael Macor/Associated Press
Budget cuts are forcing China Camp State Park, in San Rafael, Calif., to close.


 “There have been lines that have been crossed that were unthinkable a couple of years ago,” said Richard Dolesh, chief of public policy for the National Recreation and Park Association.
 Here in Washington, one of only a handful of states that has not charged entrance fees to state parks, the revenue stream is about to change. Beginning July 1, the parks will no longer receive state money for their operating budgets. Instead, they will rely directly on new entrance fees — $30 for an annual pass, $10 for one day. It is far from clear that the new plan will compensate for the $70 million in state money that parks are losing each year.
 “We’re totally free of the tax system,” said Jack Hartt, the manager here at Deception Pass State Park. “If you support the park system, you’ll buy a pass. If not, you won’t.”
 “Customers,” Mr. Hartt said, “is the new buzzword.”
 One of the most inventive efforts is in Ohio, where the Legislature is set to approve a bill that would allow drilling for oil and gas in the shale beneath some state parks. Lawmakers say parks would directly benefit from revenues. The number of full-time Ohio parks employees has declined by nearly 40 percent over the last decade, and the state says it faces $1 billion in delayed repairs and maintenance.
 “I don’t want to see the parks become refineries or anything like that,” said Paul Wolf, president of Friends for the Preservation of Ohio State Parks. “But it’s a tough decision to make. If parks deteriorate, what good is keeping drilling out of the parks?”
 When a State House committee passed the measure last month, Jack Shaner of the Ohio Environmental Council said in a statement: “Under park rules, it is unlawful for a camper to tack a clothesline to a tree. But under the bill, it would be O.K. for a driller to chop his way through the forest to set up a drilling rig. This puts a whole new spin on ‘getting away from it all.’ ”
 The resignation some feel about the Ohio plan is rooted in a broader sense nationwide that the status of parks has permanently changed, that parks officials cannot passively presume that lawmakers, Democrat or Republican, will rescue them. Yet some officials also worry that rising fees, rising gas prices and a need to “market” parks to people who will spend money will keep those with lower incomes from enjoying public lands.
 “We’re catering more to Middle America, to middle-class recreationists, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” said Richard Just, the chief planner at the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation and immediate past president of National Association of Recreation Resource Planners.
 But, Mr. Just said, a basic pact between parks and the public — the idea that parks will be easily accessible and affordable, and safeguarded by the state — is at risk. He recalled a new board member of the association asking, “In what way are they state parks anymore?”
 Last year, Gov. C. L. Otter of Idaho proposed eliminating the parks department altogether. That plan died amid resistance and concerns over a loss in federal matching funds. In California, federal rules also complicate Governor Brown’s plan. But in Idaho, parks officials are not relaxing. Mr. Just pointed to Farragut State Park near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where he said the state makes money from entrance fees as well as by selling discs to users of its Wreckreator Frisbee golf course. The idea is to do what the views of the northern Rockies apparently cannot do alone: attract a variety of park users and their money.
 “We’ve put all of our eggs in the marketing basket,” Mr. Just said. “We’re paying a lot more attention to — and I hate this phrase — running them like a business, because they’re not a business.”
 Efforts at streamlining and privatizing are everywhere. Colorado just approved merging its parks department with the Division of Wildlife. Arizona and Florida are considering privatizing park operations. Local governments have taken over operations at certain state parks. Community groups mow grass and plow snow. One, in Aurora, N.Y., is paying for a portable toilet for Knox Farm State Park.
 In Georgia, parks financing has been cut by almost 50 percent since 2008, said Becky Kelley, the parks director there. Georgia parks are in the middle of what Ms. Kelley called a “repositioning,” expected for completion in 2015, that is intended to make them financially independent by raising revenues from sources like parking fees and overnight Father’s Day packages at golf courses in state parks.
 “We were told by the General Assembly to ‘pursue a strategy of self-sufficiency,’ ” Ms. Kelley said. “We realized we could not hunker down and wait it out. This was a different day.”


Bowman Beach at Deception Pass, where volunteers handle many tasks.


 As fees rise, some services are declining. Maintenance and repair backlogs grow while staff shrinks.
“They just redid the bathrooms, but now they’re not even open,” said Margo Townsend, walking West Beach at Deception Pass, which spans two islands in Puget Sound.
 At nearby Rosario Beach, also in Deception Pass, “We’ve got rangers with degrees cleaning restrooms,” said Sammye Kempbell, a volunteer.
 Often the only park representatives at a site, volunteers are growing accustomed to authority. Ms. Kempbell applied for grant money to buy the cart she uses to haul educational materials out to teach children by the tide pools. She also leads volunteer training.
 Ms. Kempbell has been doing this work for eight years and loves it. But at 68, she said she would like to spend a little more time enjoying parks and a little less time saving them — not that she expects the need to go away.
 “A lot of us who do these things are retirees,” said Ms. Kempbell, hauling her cart off the rocky beach as the tide rose and an afternoon rain began to fall. “We need some young blood.”

© 2011nytimes.com




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