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When pieces of national parks go on sale, U.S. can't pay
Despite a slight uptick in 2008, federal funding for privately owned land purchases has taken a hit in recent years.
from the January 11, 2008 edition
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Though zoning authority resides with local officials, park administrators can still utilize eminent domain.
"They are always mentioning condemnation," says Chuck Cushman, head of the American Land Rights Association, a group representing owners of property inside parks.
Yet park officials rarely invoke eminent domain. That's due, Cushman says, to the lower land acquisition budgets keeping park officials focused on trying to buy from willing sellers only. "What we've tried to do is to keep the land acquisition funding below the willing seller threshold," he says.
Private landowners, he says, generally take care of their land just as well if not better than the national park surrounding them, and abuses are the exception.
In calls placed to 10 parks across the West, a few park representatives complained about development.
Officials at Glacier National Park in Montana cite a handful of what they call "inappropriate developments." One owner used a historic wagon road, leaving big ruts – and tensions.
An upgrade to a ramshackle cabin was problematic for officials in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park.
"That was one instance where I felt like something had gotten away. Had we been able to [purchase it] when it was just a rustic cabin it might have been affordable. Now I don't think it will be affordable," says Larry Gamble, head of the park's lands program.
Newer parks face greater threats.
"We still have some critical lands to acquire, and many of those over the last five years have fallen through and been developed because we didn't have land acquisition money," says Woody Smeck, superintendent at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area near Los Angeles. Park officials still hope to acquire 27,500 acres.
A developer who outbid the park for a rare type of savannah subdivided it for tract housing. "When I drive through that area I think of what could have been," says Mr. Smeck.
Parks get some help from charitable land trusts that can buy land and donate it or give "bridge funding" to willing sellers until the park is in a position to pay.
"We are a conservation emergency room, and with the decline of funding in recent years we've had to do more triage," says Mr. Front of the Trust for Public Land.
The group stalled a major development at the Virgin Islands National Park by putting up $30 million. The Trust also helped the park secure 56 acres on Cape Cod, Mass., including the only public camping area.
Help from the private sector – including tapping big donations from major corporations – may be the only way to complete the National Parks System, says Grace Lee, head of the National Park Trust. Her group helped the parks purchase an old mine in California's Sequoia National Park, among many other projects.
"The federal government can't do it alone – there will never be enough money to pay for all the land needed to be protected," says Ms. Lee.
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