Latest news with #ParkService
Vox
3 hours ago
- General
- Vox
Your favorite national park is struggling to survive
is a freelance journalist who covers science, the environment, wildlife, and the outdoors. She is based in Laramie, Wyoming. Researchers study black swifts in Glacier National Park, Montana, in 2018. Cuts to the Park Service means the parks are missing out on species monitoring data. National Park Service This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk Collaboration. Stories of struggle flow unceasingly from our public lands — here, a senior botanist pulled from invasive species removal to check campgrounds for unattended fires; there, a trail crew fired, leaving backcountry areas inaccessible after timber blowdowns. Elsewhere, fire crews are bracing for destructive wildland blazes without the necessary backup from extra personnel certified to help. The Trump administration has already cut thousands of employees from the US Forest Service, Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management, and thousands more workers now fear for their jobs after the Supreme Court gave the administration the green light. And yet, on the surface, many national parks and even Forest Service campgrounds appear to be managing business as usual. 'Some districts still have recreation crews in place, though others hardly have any, and fire folks are running around trying to clean toilets,' said Mary Erickson, the recently retired Custer Gallatin National Forest supervisor. Senior staff have retired or taken the DOGE 'fork in the road' email, leading to, among other things, drastic shortfalls in trail maintenance. 'On top of that, there's a hiring freeze. But I know the mantra at the local level is, they're trying to do the best they can do with what they have.' The national parks are no different, said Jeff Mow, former Glacier National Park superintendent. The toilets might still be cleaned and pumped, but behind the scenes our national treasures are being 'hollowed out.' 'They're not understanding the impacts the cuts have, not just on staffing but also resources and local economies,' Mow said. Mow spent 32 years with the Park Service, many of them as superintendent of various parks, including Montana's Glacier National Park and Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in central Colorado. He retired in 2022 and now serves on the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks and is a board member of National Park Friends Alliance. Mow sat down with High Country News to explain what we're seeing this summer and what the recent cuts mean for our public lands' future. How have the Park Service cuts hit park units differently? Many people, when they think of the National Park System, think of large parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, or Grand Teton. These are all parks that have pretty significant staffs. It's often like running a small city with multiple sewer systems, water systems, and all the law enforcement. What most people don't realize is that the majority of National Park Service units are small and medium-sized parks, like Gettysburg or Florissant Fossil Beds. A lot of those small units are minimally staffed, and when these guys lose three or four positions, in some cases, they've lost half their staffing. Jeff Mow, then Glacier National Park superintendent, at the park in 2016. Tami A. Heilemann/DOI We keep hearing from visitors to some of the major national parks that not much has changed — that toilets are clean and front desks are operating. Why would that be? They are putting the focus on visitor services so that the visitors coming aren't going to see a whole lot of changes from what they might have seen the year before. But there are two halves to the National Park Service mission. One half is preserving the resources for future generations, and they are taking away the emphasis on preserving the resources. When I was superintendent, I relied on my local inventory and monitoring network to tell me: Is the park in good shape? Are these invasives coming from this farmer's field, or this rancher's field? Do I need to be concerned about this housing development and what it may do, or oil and gas development on my boundary? I didn't have the expertise in a small park to deal with that. I relied on that expertise from a regional office, or from a program office like our Natural Resource Program Center. We're losing that. We're losing a lot of expertise. What does that mean over the long term? You can look at this as a homeowner. If you don't get the house painted this year, you will probably be fine. But if you don't get the house painted or fix the broken piece on the house, over five years you may have real problems. We are losing monitoring, like what are black swifts doing in Glacier? This is the largest population of black swifts in Montana. Or the monitoring of our endangered species, whether grizzly bears or wolverines or bull trout. All those things are getting cut short. And in the long term, we won't have a lot of that information about our understanding of what is going on under climate change. So we won't know how species are doing until it's potentially too late? Correct. And when we lose the resource, it's gone. We may be losing the very purpose for which each unit was established. As a federal agency, each park has a mission, but then each unit is established for a particular reason. Fossil Buttes has very specific enabling legislation for why it was established, and it's for understanding and connecting us to the ancient world, which is very different than what the Martin Luther King home does. Unlike Disneyland, where everything's replicated, these are almost always (unique): the original fabric in the bedroom where Abraham Lincoln died and its significance in our nation's history.
San Francisco Chronicle
7 days ago
- Climate
- San Francisco Chronicle
National Park Service defends the handling of lightning-sparked blaze that destroyed historic lodge
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — The National Park Service is defending its handling of a lightning-sparked wildfire that destroyed the nearly century-old Grand Canyon Lodge and dozens of historic cabins, saying containment lines had been built around the blaze and crews were prepared to conduct defensive firing operations. But then came a sudden and extreme shift in the wind that far exceeded forecast conditions, the agency recounted Tuesday in an email sent to The Associated Press. 'The Dragon Bravo Fire began July 4 as a lightning-caused wildfire and was under a full suppression strategy from the outset,' the agency said, adding that the team first assigned to the fire 'effectively managed the fire through its initial phase' and that Grand Canyon National Park requested additional resources as fire activity increased. The Park Service had posted on social media last week that the fire was being managed under a 'confine and contain strategy," which allowed for the natural role of fire on the landscape while minimizing the risk to infrastructure and other values. Arizona's governor and members of the state's congressional delegation called for an investigation as the Park Service immediately came under scrutiny after the lodge and other historic buildings were destroyed. The flames were fanned by uncharacteristic nighttime gusts that topped 40 mph (65 kph), said fire information officer Stefan La-Sky. 'Normally the fire 'lays down' at night because of higher humidity and lower temperatures, but this thing was really wind-driven,' La-Sky said Tuesday, adding that it is extremely dry across the region. The weather was more favorable Tuesday as hundreds of firefighters worked to stop the Dragon Bravo Fire from consuming any more of the buildings along the park's less-visited North Rim, including a water pumping station that supplies the South Rim, La-Sky said. A separate blaze dubbed the White Sage Fire was burning further north. Together, the two fires have charred more than 90 square miles (233 kilometers). That is more than twice the size of the entire Walt Disney World complex in Florida. Tourists watch smoke rise Tourists standing along the park's popular South Rim on Tuesday watched plumes of smoke rise above the sweeping vista, filling the canyon with a thick haze and pooling in its depths. 'By the afternoon, it was completely socked in,' Christi Anderson said of the smoke that had filled the canyon the day before. 'You couldn't see anything, none of that. It was crazy.' Anderson was visiting from California and considered herself lucky because she had shifted her reservation to the South Rim in the preceding days. Otherwise she would have been among those forced to evacuate. Park officials have closed access to the North Rim, a more isolated area that draws only about 10% of the Grand Canyon's millions of annual visitors. The park spans more than 1,900 square miles (4,920 square kilometers). Neither blaze had any containment, and La-Sky said it was too early for his team to offer a timeline. 'We're always at the mercy of Mother Nature,' he said. Complex fire management program Over the years, managers at the Grand Canyon have successfully used fire to benefit the landscape, with the park having what some experts say is an exemplary fire management program that has tapped both prescribed fire and wildfires to improve forest health. Andi Thode, a professor of fire ecology and management at Northern Arizona University and the lead at the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, said park managers have even re-burned some areas in multiple places over the years to create what she called 'one of the best jigsaw puzzles' on public land. She noted that fire behavior decreased significantly when the Dragon Bravo Fire burned into the footprint of a previously burned area. 'So creating that heterogeneity across the landscape, using fire is a really critical tool moving forward to be able to help in the future with these wildfire events that are happening at the worst time in the worst weather conditions with the driest fuels,' Thode said. The park's 2025 fire management plan notes the Grand Canyon's designation as a World Heritage Site, referencing cultural and natural resources, spiritual and inspirational qualities, recreational opportunities and other values. 'It is the Fire Management Program's mission to manage wildland fires to preserve, enhance and (where necessary) restore these values,' the plan reads. Those areas that have the most infrastructure and are among the most highly used by the public make up just over 1% of the park. According to the plan, managing wildfires for resource benefit objectives within these areas is not permitted and that the overall intent within these areas is to 'protect life and property in its natural setting.' The fire exclusion areas listed in the plan include the developed area of the North Rim. Aside from outlining policies for responding to wildfires and planning for prescribed fires, the document includes links to tools that fire managers can use for assessing risk. The lodge and surrounding cabins were among the more than 370 structures at the park that were considered high risk. Another 238 structures fall in the moderate risk category. The Park Service reiterated Tuesday that the safety of the public and firefighters come first. 'Firefighters are continuing to respond to this fire in the safest way possible putting their lives and the lives of the community, park visitors, and park employees ahead of buildings.' the agency said. ___
Hamilton Spectator
7 days ago
- Climate
- Hamilton Spectator
National Park Service defends the handling of lightning-sparked blaze that destroyed historic lodge
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — The National Park Service is defending its handling of a lightning-sparked wildfire that destroyed the nearly century-old Grand Canyon Lodge and dozens of historic cabins, saying containment lines had been built around the blaze and crews were prepared to conduct defensive firing operations. But then came a sudden and extreme shift in the wind that far exceeded forecast conditions, the agency recounted Tuesday in an email sent to The Associated Press. 'The Dragon Bravo Fire began July 4 as a lightning-caused wildfire and was under a full suppression strategy from the outset,' the agency said, adding that the team first assigned to the fire 'effectively managed the fire through its initial phase' and that Grand Canyon National Park requested additional resources as fire activity increased. The Park Service had posted on social media last week that the fire was being managed under a 'confine and contain strategy,' which allowed for the natural role of fire on the landscape while minimizing the risk to infrastructure and other values. Arizona's governor and members of the state's congressional delegation called for an investigation as the Park Service immediately came under scrutiny after the lodge and other historic buildings were destroyed. The flames were fanned by uncharacteristic nighttime gusts that topped 40 mph (65 kph), said fire information officer Stefan La-Sky. 'Normally the fire 'lays down' at night because of higher humidity and lower temperatures, but this thing was really wind-driven,' La-Sky said Tuesday, adding that it is extremely dry across the region. The weather was more favorable Tuesday as hundreds of firefighters worked to stop the Dragon Bravo Fire from consuming any more of the buildings along the park's less-visited North Rim , including a water pumping station that supplies the South Rim, La-Sky said. A separate blaze dubbed the White Sage Fire was burning further north. Together, the two fires have charred more than 90 square miles (233 kilometers). That is more than twice the size of the entire Walt Disney World complex in Florida. Tourists standing along the park's popular South Rim on Tuesday watched plumes of smoke rise above the sweeping vista, filling the canyon with a thick haze and pooling in its depths. 'By the afternoon, it was completely socked in,' Christi Anderson said of the smoke that had filled the canyon the day before. 'You couldn't see anything, none of that. It was crazy.' Anderson was visiting from California and considered herself lucky because she had shifted her reservation to the South Rim in the preceding days. Otherwise she would have been among those forced to evacuate. Park officials have closed access to the North Rim, a more isolated area that draws only about 10% of the Grand Canyon's millions of annual visitors . The park spans more than 1,900 square miles (4,920 square kilometers). Neither blaze had any containment, and La-Sky said it was too early for his team to offer a timeline. 'We're always at the mercy of Mother Nature,' he said. Over the years, managers at the Grand Canyon have successfully used fire to benefit the landscape, with the park having what some experts say is an exemplary fire management program that has tapped both prescribed fire and wildfires to improve forest health. Andi Thode, a professor of fire ecology and management at Northern Arizona University and the lead at the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, said park managers have even re-burned some areas in multiple places over the years to create what she called 'one of the best jigsaw puzzles' on public land. She noted that fire behavior decreased significantly when the Dragon Bravo Fire burned into the footprint of a previously burned area. 'So creating that heterogeneity across the landscape, using fire is a really critical tool moving forward to be able to help in the future with these wildfire events that are happening at the worst time in the worst weather conditions with the driest fuels,' Thode said. The park's 2025 fire management plan notes the Grand Canyon's designation as a World Heritage Site , referencing cultural and natural resources, spiritual and inspirational qualities, recreational opportunities and other values. 'It is the Fire Management Program's mission to manage wildland fires to preserve, enhance and (where necessary) restore these values,' the plan reads. Those areas that have the most infrastructure and are among the most highly used by the public make up just over 1% of the park. According to the plan, managing wildfires for resource benefit objectives within these areas is not permitted and that the overall intent within these areas is to 'protect life and property in its natural setting.' The fire exclusion areas listed in the plan include the developed area of the North Rim. Aside from outlining policies for responding to wildfires and planning for prescribed fires, the document includes links to tools that fire managers can use for assessing risk. The lodge and surrounding cabins were among the more than 370 structures at the park that were considered high risk. Another 238 structures fall in the moderate risk category. The Park Service reiterated Tuesday that the safety of the public and firefighters come first. 'Firefighters are continuing to respond to this fire in the safest way possible putting their lives and the lives of the community, park visitors, and park employees ahead of buildings.' the agency said. ___ Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Christopher Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
Winnipeg Free Press
7 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Fire crews along Grand Canyon are trying to save cabins after loss of historic lodge
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — Crews fighting a wildfire that destroyed the nearly century-old Grand Canyon Lodge and a visitors center were focused Tuesday on stopping the flames from consuming nearby cabins, mule stables and other structures, fire officials said. Firefighters are dealing with a pair of wildfires along the park's less-visited North Rim that together have burned through more than 90 square miles (233 kilometers). That's more than twice the size of the entire Walt Disney World complex in Florida. Each blaze grew overnight into Tuesday, but fire officials expressed optimism that they had slowed the spread of the White Sage Fire, the larger of the two. Tourists standing along the park's popular South Rim on Tuesday could see plumes of smoke rising above the canyon walls and a haze hanging over the sweeping vista. 'By the afternoon, it was completely socked in,' Christi Anderson said of the smoke that had filled the canyon the day before. 'You couldn't see anything, none of that. It was crazy.' Anderson was visiting from California and considered herself lucky because she had shifted her reservation to the South Rim in the preceding days. Otherwise she would have been among those forced to evacuate. The Dragon Bravo Fire, ignited by a lightning strike on July 4, destroyed the lodge and dozens of cabins over the weekend. That fire had been allowed to burn for days before strong winds caused it to erupt, leading to questions about the National Park Service's decision not to aggressively attack the fire right away. Four days into the fire, the Park Service said it was being allowed to burn to benefit the land. Then on Friday, fire officials and the Park Service warned visitors to evacuate immediately as the fire grew by nearly eight times within a day. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has called for a federal investigation into the Park Service's handling of the fire and plans to meet with leaders from the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior, her office said. U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego have asked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum how the administration plans to track wildfire decision-making under a recent executive order to consolidate federal firefighting forces into a single program. The Associated Press has left phone and email messages with Park Service officials seeking comment about how the fire was managed. Over the years, managers at the Grand Canyon have successfully used fire to benefit the landscape, with the park having what some experts say is an exemplary fire management program that has tapped both prescribed fire and wildfires to improve forest health. Andi Thode, a professor of fire ecology and management at Northern Arizona University and the lead at the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, said park managers have even re-burned some areas in multiple places over the years to create what she called 'one of the best jigsaw puzzles' on public land. She noted that fire behavior decreased significantly when the Dragon Bravo Fire burned into the footprint of a previously burned area. 'So creating that heterogeneity across the landscape, using fire is a really critical tool moving forward to be able to help in the future with these wildfire events that are happening at the worst time in the worst weather conditions with the driest fuels,' Thode said. Fire officials on Tuesday said the Dragon Bravo Fire had spread to nearly 13 square miles (34 square kilometers) while the larger White Sage Fire had charred 81 square miles (210 square kilometers). Neither blaze had any containment. Park officials have closed access to the North Rim, a more isolated area that draws only about 10% of the Grand Canyon's millions of annual visitors. Hikers in the area were evacuated and rafters on the Colorado River, which snakes through the canyon, were told to bypass Phantom Ranch, an outpost of cabins and dormitories. Trails to the area from the canyon's North and South rims also were closed. The Dragon Bravo Fire flared up Saturday night, fueled by high winds. Firefighters used aerial fire retardant drops near the lodge before they had to pull back because of a chlorine gas leak at a water treatment plant, the park service said. ___ Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Christopher Keller and Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
The Hill
15-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Proposed cuts to NASA science would be disastrous
'No bucks, no Buck Rogers.' This quote, from the 1983 movie 'The Right Stuff,' encapsulates the idea that ambitions in space do not come cheap. With that in mind, what are the prospects for NASA as its budget wends its way through Congress? Adjusted for inflation, NASA's current budget is 25 percent lower than it was in the early 1990s. The agency accounts for just 0.37 percent of federal spending. NASA has always enjoyed strong public support — its net favorability rating is plus-55 percentage points, behind only the Park Service and the Postal Service. NASA's effects are not felt only in deep space. The agency has an Earth Science Division that operates 20 satellites and provides data to hundreds of research groups. The data helps scientists model the atmosphere, oceans and polar regions, and monitor global land use and climate change. NASA also generates economic and social benefits, with $5 billion of its budget going into U.S. manufacturing and over a million citizen scientists involved in its missions. Next year, the outlook for NASA will be dire. The president's proposed budget for 2026 cuts the agency by nearly 25 percent. That would be the largest single-year cut in NASA's history, taking it back to a level last seen in 1961. While human exploration beyond the Earth is protected, NASA science would suffer a draconian cut of 47 percent. This would shut down 41 space missions, including 19 that are currently active and producing valuable science, a waste of $12 billon of taxpayer investment. The budget has met with strong criticism from space industry leaders and members of Congress, and concern from NASA's international partners. NASA has already been underfunded for years. A 2024 report from the National Academies called for NASA to greatly boost spending on its aging infrastructure, much of which dates back to the 1960s. Former NASA leaders have weighed in. John Grunsfeld, who flew five space shuttle missions and was associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, said, 'The proposal for the NASA science budget is, in fact, cataclysmic for U.S. leadership in science.' Bill Nelson, NASA's administrator from 2021 to 2025, worries about the geopolitical implications, writing, 'The administration has presented Congress with a blueprint for falling catastrophically behind on space exploration just as China and other nations are surging head.' Every living former NASA science chief is opposed to the proposed cuts. All this comes while NASA is rudderless. Jared Isaacman, President Trump's initial pick to be NASA administrator, was on the cusp of Senate confirmation when his nomination was pulled. Acting Administrator Janet Petro did not have the political capital to advocate for the agency. At a recent t o wn hall, she struggled to defend the budget, saying 'There's a lot of science that can still be done with $4 billion.' The town hall was not publicized outside of NASA, and video of the event has been taken down. The newly appointed interim administrator is Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former reality television personality with no space experience. NASA's fate is now in the hands of Congress. The agency has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past, but that will be tested in the current budget cycle. The early signs were optimistic, but the White House may be working to terminate dozens of science missions before Congress can act. However, the Senate appropriations committee has recently pushed back on the administration's cuts. The budget battle is joined. A shrunken NASA would have difficulty continuing the work that put clever rovers on Mars and created telescopes that discovered Earth-like planets and gave us views of the distant cosmos across the electromagnetic spectrum. Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He does research on observational cosmology and astrobiology and writes extensively about space policy and the future of space exploration.
