NATIONAL PARKS: Critics question need for Colo. monument plan at time of budget cuts
Scott Streater, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Wednesday, March 20, 2013
A National Park Service retirees group is urging NPS to cancel planned public meetings to discuss what kinds of activities and events are suitable at the Colorado National Monument, questioning the motives and necessity of the effort at a time of deep budget cuts due to sequestration.
The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees in a brief letter sent to John Wessels, director of NPS's Intermountain Region in Denver, also expressed concern that the meetings associated with the development of a "visitor activity and commercial service plan" at the western Colorado monument could reopen the debate over whether to allow a portion of a professional bicycle race through the park unit.
NPS officials this week denied that the visitor activity plan, first announced in November, would take scarce financial resources away from other park operations. They also rebuked suggestions that the Park Service is retreating from its stance that a professional bike race is not appropriate at the site, despite pressure from Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) and members of Colorado's congressional delegation, including Sen. Mark Udall (D) and Rep. Scott Tipton (R). The Park Service has denied requests to run a stage of the 500-mile USA Pro Cycling Challenge race through the national monument three times in the past two years.
But the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees says NPS has been sending out signals that indicate otherwise.
"In various news stories and in statements by NPS officials, we note the continued emphasis that the [public] meetings will provide yet another evaluation for the use of Colorado National Monument for a stage of the proposed professional bike race, the USA Pro Challenge," wrote Maureen Finnerty, chairwoman of the coalition's executive council. She added, "It makes absolutely no sense to re-open this debate."
Finnerty's letter also questions why the Park Service would spend money on the visitor activity plan when budget sequestration has forced cuts across the national park system. Her letter is especially critical of NPS's hiring a third-party facilitator to organize and run a series of still unscheduled public meetings designed to get input from the nearby community.
"The costly financial implications of holding a series of community meetings with an outside contracted facilitator and attendant travel costs are hard to justify in the face of the budget sequester. This money should instead go to mission critical operations in the park," Finnerty wrote.
The coalition "strongly recommends that the National Park Service cancel these meetings now that sequester cuts are in effect. We believe them unnecessary and a wasteful financial expenditure," she wrote in the letter to Wessels, copies of which were also sent to NPS Director Jon Jarvis and Colorado National Monument Superintendent Lisa Eckert, as well as Udall and Hickenlooper.
Eckert said in an interview yesterday that she was surprised by the coalition's letter. She said development of the visitor activity plan will not cause any financial problems for the national monument, noting that the Park Service last year allocated what she estimated to be more than $100,000 for the plan.
"The money was already obligated" before the budget sequester that kicked in March 1, she said. "The idea [for the plan] was so well-received by the regional office and national office that we received money to move forward."
Eckert said NPS has already hired a contractor that has begun the scoping process and orchestrated a youth visitor survey that the national monument staff is reviewing.
Eckert said the visitor activity plan at the monument is not being done because of any pressure from bike race supporters and will not focus on any single event or activity.
Rather, the activity plan will attempt to engage the public and see how best to incorporate ideas from the surrounding community in Grand Junction, Colo., on balancing protection of the 20,500-acre monument's natural treasures with its potential to help drive economic growth in the region, Eckert said.
The goal remains to produce a "decision document" that outlines park procedures and why they are in place, so that the public understands what types of activities are suitable for the national monument and what activities are not, she said.
"This is a systems-thinking approach," she said. "It is a way to look at the entire system. It's a holistic view. And what I think the community and the Park Service needs is a decisionmaking document to take the emotion out of it and streamline the process to handle the numerous special-use requests we receive."
A contentious issue
The coalition's letter is the latest in the ongoing and sometimes heated debate over suitable activities in the monument that was sparked in 2010 by a request to run a stage of the professional bike race through the monument.
Those requests were made by the business and civic leaders that make up the Grand Junction USA Pro Challenge Local Organizing Committee (LOC), which sees the race as a potential boost to the local economy.
The Grand Junction LOC's proposal last summer asked the Park Service to allow a stage of the August 2013 Pro Cycling Challenge to run along a 4-mile stretch of right of way on Rim Rock Drive inside the monument.
A short time after that proposal was rejected, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar privately met with the Grand Junction leaders in September and laid out his vision for the visitor activity and commercial service plan.
Critics of the bike race fear it could set a precedent that they say would violate the Park Service's primary mission to protect and preserve resources for future generations.
And they note that other park units face similar pressures, including Yosemite National Park, where officials since 2009 have twice denied a permit request to host a stage of the Amgen Tour of California professional bike race.
Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.
