Can nation's parks survive the pressure?

Homes seen from inside parks
The changes in the outside world are becoming more visible inside the nation’s 390 parks, marring once unblemished vistas.

Vacation homes now dot the shores lining Acadia and the mountains that border the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Subdivisions have sprouted up around hallowed Civil War sites such as Manassas Battlefield Park in Virginia.

Convenience stores, strip malls and shopping centers line the roads to many parks. Traffic piles up, aggravating visitors and residents alike.

Pollution has diminished the average daytime visibility from 90 miles to less than 25 miles at Eastern parks, and in the West from 140 miles to between 35 miles and 90 miles, the Environmental Protection Agency said.

John Bunyak, branch chief in the Park Service Air Resources Division, said visibility is expected to improve in the coming decades with new regional haze regulations.

Even the parks’ famed views of starry skies are in jeopardy.

Nighttime lights, beaming from cities and towns 200 miles away from parks such as Mount Rainier in Washington state and Yosemite in California, reduce star visibility and can affect nocturnal wildlife.

In urban regions, including Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in California, visitors can only see a few hundred stars instead of the 8,000 that would be visible in pristine conditions.

“If there’s no place that is clear and clean, if there’s no place that is dark and starry, where does that leave us?” asks Chad Moore, program manager for the National Park Service’s Night Sky Team. “If we can’t protect the best parts of America in national parks, then we’re certainly not going to be able to protect them anywhere else.”

AP survey results
Americans are split on park development.

Robert F. Bukaty / AP Private homes like the ones at left and right now dot the shores lining Acadia National Park in Maine.

More than 40 percent favor increasing development inside parks, such as cell towers and snowmobile trails, an AP-Ipsos poll found. One-third favored increasing developments such as resort hotels and residential subdivisions outside park boundaries.

Joe Westbrook, a coal miner in Corbin, Ky., said he occasionally drives through the heavily forested federal lands in eastern Kentucky and sees missed opportunities for development. “Folks have got to go some place,” he said. “If they want to develop it, I’d have no problem with it.”

Across the continent near Salem, Ore., Jessie Hankins, 22, said a cross-country drive that included a stop at Yellowstone convinced him that parks ought to be kept free of development. “To me, the parks ought to be enjoyed for the natural things that make them what they are,” Hankins said.

With war, terrorism and budget pressures, there is little pressure in Washington for buffering the parks from outside development.

Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary at the Interior Department, said it would be futile to try to create artificial barriers to protect parks from the outside world. Instead, she said, the government needs to work with state, local and private landowners. “Nature itself,” she said, “knows no boundaries.”

Operations uproar
Park officials found themselves in a firestorm when a draft the revised blueprint for operating national parks was leaked last year. Critics saw in its omissions and word changes an effort to expand recreational opportunities at a cost to preservation.

Gerald Herbert / AP file National Park Service Director Fran Mainella

The director of the National Park Service, Fran Mainella, said officials were simply trying to address new issues such as homeland security and computer technology but concedes the process could have been handled better. A newer draft scratches most of the controversial language, according to park officials who have worked on it.

“When the issue is between conservation and use, conservation will predominate,” Mainella said.

The administration signaled its commitment to preservation this month by creating the nation’s newest national monument — a 1,400-mile chain of islands northwest of Hawaii that’s larger than all national parks combined.

MORE FROM ENVIRONMENT

Environment Section Front

Steel town plans return to its green roots On climate emissions cuts, costs may vary U.S. ecoterror suspect in China jail Much less ice for polar bears, expert says Brazil: ‘Gringos’ must pay to save Amazon Sea turtle sacrifices? Indonesia says no way Australia town to shoot invading camels China vows to slow carbon emissions growth Newsweek: Is carbon sequestration really green? U.S. sets climate target ahead of summit Environment Section Front   Add Environment headlines to your news reader: