Where has all the money gone?

The National Park Service (NPS) has come under close scrutiny by members of Congress who have criticized the agencies plans to cut back visitor services at parks across the nation.

“It seems to me what we’re dealing with is a management and priority problem with the Park Service,” Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz told NPS Director Fran Mainella last March.

“All agencies have to face increased costs — we’re no different,” Mainella told members of Congress who had called her to explain why the agency was spending millions of dollars on travel while at the same time cutting back services and hours at some parks this summer.

Her assurances didn’t appease either Republican or Democrats on a House Appropriations subcommittee over Park Service spending.

“You can’t sit here and tell me, across this table, that services aren’t eroding in the national parks,” Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., the senior Democrat on the subcommittee told Mainella.

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., was even more blunt:

“Who’s minding the store here? Are you all sort of oblivious to what’s going on?”

Alaskans have been asking the same question after watching the administration at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST) waste millions of dollars on bogus law enforcement schemes to harass and intimidate local residents, purchase private property that they don’t need, and “feather their own nest” with the multi-million dollar complex at Copper Center, well out of the parks boundaries.

Last year, WRST Superintendent Gary Candelaria ordered the only visitor contact point at McCarthy shut down for the season. Supposedly, this saved the agency $27,000. However, at the same time NPS increased staffing and purchased over $300,000 of additional property at Kennecott, which has far fewer visitors than McCarthy.

The hand-crafted, dove-tail corner log cabin kiosk at mile 58.5 on the McCarthy Road had been newly constructed in 2002 and was open only one season before the closure. People arriving at the end of the road could get information about the park, and learn what was across the river before making the commitment to cross the footbridge and pay the $10 round-trip fare to Kennecott.

Fortunately for the visitors, the Pilgrim family teamed up with Steve Syren to build and operate a Visitor Information booth at the footbridge— essentially doing the job that NPS refused to do. Syren, who owns and operates the parking lot at the end of the road, says that without someone to explain the value of crossing the river and making the 4-mile trip to Kennecott, many people just turn around and head back to Chitina without ever seeing either of the old mining towns.

The NPS, embarrassed by the situation, targeted the Pilgrim family with several undercover “sting” operations that cost the taxpayer much more than $27,000, and resulted in minuscule fines from two federal judges. “I think the NPS should want to avoid getting a reputation as a bully,” Judge John Roberts said at a recent sentencing hearing, when he ordered Joseph Pilgrim pay a fine of just over $300 when the NPS had asked for $3,000.

Then there was the attempt by NPS to shut off the only ground access to the Pilgrim family’s home at the Marvelous Millsite, an effort that has cost the government over a half-million dollars to date. (The Pilgrims sued the NPS — the case is currently being heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.)

When the NPS decided to pay for a survey around the Pilgrim’s property, they added insult to injury by demanding the surveyors clear cut nearly two miles of trees and brush on the property boundary — creating an ugly scar that is visible from miles away.

Then there were thousands of dollars spent in the harassment case against Doug Frederick, whose crime was to try to work with Assistant Superintendent Hunter Sharp to solve the ATV trail problem near Nabesna. These deteriorating trails have been the source of the National Parks and Conservation Association’s consternation that led it to declare WRST as one of America’s 10 Most Endangered Parks. Seems the NPS solution is to close the trails, not repair them — no matter how much the closure costs.

Superintendent Candelaria recently told residents that the NPS plans to spend an additional 8 million dollars over the next few years to build additional facilities in the McCarthy & Kennecott areas — facilities intended for park personnel, not visitors.

We have to concur with CBS New’s Bob Schieffer, who recently said, “... it is just the latest chapter in a tale of Park Service mismanagement in which multimillion-dollar projects have been launched without congressional approval and authorization ... So I have another travel tip. Give the Park Service brass their walking papers. They shouldn’t be out of work long. They can hire out as clowns.”