Why US parks put land purchases on hold

In Zion National Park in Utah, just 10 strategically placed acres that could be purchased are instead drifting steadily toward development, NPCA officials say.
Even at Valley Forge National Historical Park in Pennsylvania, 78 privately held acres inside park boundaries that could have been purchased may now become a hotel, conference center, and museum – all within rifle shot of Gen. George Washington’s former winter headquarters.
“You’re leaving America’s heritage at risk,” says Ron Tipton, senior vice president for programs at NPCA. “Private owners have a legal right to get value for their property. If the Park Service can’t do that in a timely way ... we’re going to have situations like Valley Forge and Petrified Forest. When you only give the Park Service $30 [million] to $40 million, you can’t do it.”

The trail leads to Washington, D.C.
Buying up vulnerable land to eliminate potential development conflict with natural park surroundings has been a goal of Congress since the Land Water and Conservation Fund (LWCF) was set up in 1965 to purchase land for federal land agencies. It funds land purchases across the US Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service.

But under the Bush administration, budget requests for land acquisition funds for national parks fell from $172 million in 2000 to $21.8 million for this next fiscal year.

A Republican-led Congress had been cutting Park Service land acquisition budgets even faster than the administration – until Democrats took control in 2006 and restored some funding. This year, Congress appropriated $44 million, double the administration request. Land budgets can also be misleading, since just $13 million of the $22 million land-acquisition budget request this year is actually to purchase parkland. More than $8 million is for administrative services related to land acquisition.

“This administration has had a different focus for the parks,” says Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for the National Park Service. “It’s been much more on operations and maintenance – maintaining what we have. It’s not been on adding new land to parks.”

Such shifts in administration priorities have been a big factor.

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