Can nation's parks survive the pressure?

Boom town outside Denali
In some cases, park officials have been able to balance the demands of visitors with the demands of progress. For instance, park superintendents increasingly rely on shuttle buses and vans to reduce traffic inside parks.

But superintendents are mostly powerless to control outside growth, which brings inevitable costs inside the parks.

Alaska’s Denali National Park, more than 4,000 miles from the Park Service’s Washington headquarters, was once among the nation’s most isolated. Today, it borders a booming resort area nicknamed Glitter Gulch.

The number of hotel rooms has doubled, visitors are staying longer and park rangers are diverted to help local law enforcement. Ambulance runs grew 35 percent last year alone.

“In the height of the summer we are in a reactive mode responding to emergencies and incidents,” said Elwood Lynn, assistant park superintendent for operations. “We have very little time to do routine patrols which translates into very little time for positive interaction with our visitors.”

Pollution, nonnative species
The pressures from pollution and invasive species illustrate the limits of what parks can solve.

The Park Service is required by law to aggressively protect air quality. But since 2001, it has appealed just one pollution permit while reviewing some 50 industrial plant applications annually.

Park air quality specialists say they do persuade plants to install better technology or reduce emissions, but state and local jurisdictions approve the permits.

“Our hands are tied,” said Bunyak, the service’s air pollution expert. “We don’t have any control over external sources.”

Invading species likewise threaten native plants and animals. Cheatgrass chokes streams in Zion National Park in Utah. Exotic deer are proliferating in Point Reyes National Seashore in California. The noisy and voracious Puerto Rican coqui frog has made forays into Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii.

Researchers believe anglers have introduced nonnative earthworms into Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota. The earthworms change the soil, which changes the trees, which affects water that flows into lakes.

Invasive species often proliferate quickly; eliminating them is expensive and labor intensive. In some cases, it requires hand removal of trees or plants and then chemical treatment of stumps and roots.

Story with no happy ending?
The encroachment shows no signs of diminishing. Scenic surroundings make for desirable real estate, uncertain oil supplies keep new coal-fired power plants coming and at least some tourists continue to demand conveniences in the wild.

National parks also are at the mercy of private “inholders,” owners of parcels within park boundaries who could develop their land because the park lacks money to buy it.

Likewise, parks face development on their fringes. A casino is proposed within cannon range of a historic Gettysburg battlefield. Several hundred new homes are approved for construction along the scenic New River Gorge National River in West Virginia.

Tom Kiernan, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, said parks often are viewed as narrators of the American story.

“The parks are beginning to tell another story as well: the story of funding shortfall, the story of very poor air quality, the story of declining health of the ecological and cultural resources of the park,” he said.

Part II: Budget contraints make for a tough juggling act.

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