Save Our Parks

---

Sallisaw KOA, Sallisaw, Oklahoma

Yep, we are at another KOA. And yes, I said earlier we don't like KOA's. But this is Memorial Day Weekend and the state parks are all chock full. Joan tried for an hour yesterday to find us a spot somewhere in this part of the world and she ended up frustrated and disappointed to have to pick the KOA. According to them, we got the last spot for tonight. There are a few spots open this morning, but they may fill in as the day progresses.

But the weather forecast is not good, so there may be some cancellations. It was at least 150% humidity yesterday evening when we arrived and it isn't much better this morning. Skies are heavily overcast and our weather apps said we should expect rain any moment. But the big event is supposed to roll in this evening - a major thunderstorm. And big thunderstorms can spawn tornadoes, so it could get interesting this evening.

We are just a few miles inside Oklahoma, having traveled about 290 miles yesterday from the otherside of Arkansas. It seems all the green dot routes in Arkansas go north-south, probably in river valleys cut through the Ozarks. So the only way to get to Oklahoma is across Interstate 40. It is a rather unremarkable ride, although there are some pretty views of and from the low Ozark mountain tops.

We stopped for lunch in the Ozark city of Russellville and ate at a Trip-Advisor-recommended Old South Diner. It is a classic diner from the outside, although quite a bit bigger on the inside. Apparently it is on the National Registry of Historic Landmarks. Service was friendly and the waitress couldn't believe we were from New Mexico and eating lunch at their restaurant. We had country-fried steak with broccoli and cheese soup. The soup was terrific, but the steak was just so-so and we've had much better gravy at other 'Southern food' places.

Since we are once again connected to the internet, we've been catching up on the news. Unfortunately, Trump is still President and hasn't changed his behavior one bit. Joan fired off a comment on Bears Ears just before the public comment period ended. Maybe it will make a difference, but it is telling the Rinke toured the site in the arms of a Koch operative, so do you think they were discussing the natural beauty, or the resource development opportunities?

I also read a short blurb about how seriously the Park Service budget is going to be cut. And that got me thinking about what the impact to the parks system is likely to be under this administration. We have to assume that, in the long run (maybe just a few years), the Trumpers will actually end the National Park Service (like they have already proposed for the EPA and the Department of Education).

So if that happens what happens to the parks themselves? While driving we tried to trace the possibilities because it isn't clear yet what they want to do. The side of the Trumpers that emphasizes state governments says that they might either sell or give the parks to the states. The side of the Trumpers that emphasizes free enterprise says they will sell the land to the highest bidder.

Let's say they do the latter and it goes to the highest bidder. Said bidders are likely to be of two types, those who want to develop the park for commercial or resource interests, or those who want to preserve the park as much as possible. The latter group might be folks like the Sierra Club, the wilderness conservancy, maybe also backed by some enlightened deep pockets, like Bill Gates. The question of course, is whether they could put together enough money to outbid the corporate developers like, let's just say, the Trump Organization, or Sheldon Adelson's casino operations? That's a really tough question - generally speaking, private philanthropy has a hard time competing against corporate America.

The sad thing is that we already did that, as a country, once when we created these parks in the first place - Great Smoky Mountains, for example, would never have happened if a group of activists hadn't pulled together to raise the money and then secured a $5 million contribution from the Rockefeller interests. However, I don't think they ever thought that the reason they created the park was so it could be sold off to private interests by some future administration!Maybe a few big parks might survive in their current form, but it is highly unlikely that this will happen with all the parks and monuments simply because there just isn't enough money out there to re-purchase these lands and then successfully operate them to preserve their character.

The rest of them, and probably the great bulk of them will likely be sold to commercial interests. And I think there are basically two types of them - those who want to plunder the land of its valuable natural resources (like Great Smoky's forests), and those who want to develop to the nth degree the tourism aspects of the location (Cape Hatteras development on the beach!). If the former, then there won't be anything worth looking at in the future because there will be oil rigs, or roads, or decimated forests, or fisheries dotting the landscape. If the latter, then the place will be a giant version of let's say Dollywood, or Gatlinburg with miniature golf courses, magic castles, and giant apes climbing hotel buildings. Whatever they can build that can be developed as crass tourist consumerism. Either way, selling them off to commercial interests is to destroy the very basis of why they were created in the first place.

Instead of selling to the highest bidder, let's say they sell or give them to the states who, supposedly, are more responsive to the people. States have two options it seems to me. They can sell them to the highest bidder (see the paragraphs above), or they can try to run it as a park. If they try to run it as a park, the question is can they? I know New Mexico is having a hard time funding education and basic health care. How would they find the money to take over some 19 National Park Service Units? Already considered a fairly 'high tax' state, raising taxes to fund additional parks isn't likely. At best, they might be able to add one or two units to the state park system, which is already underfunded. The rest would be sold off (see above).

When I read the various histories of our many parks, it is clear to me that we have already spent considerable resources, time, and energy into creating them. To suggest that all that effort was simply so this administration could sell them off to the highest bidder is to undermine all that work. They were established because the people, through their elected representatives and Presidents, wanted to preserve some small part of our beautiful countryside against the assault of unregulated commercial greed. We aren't doing anybody any service by taking these beautiful, interesting, and historic places away. Save the National Parks! (17.1.80)

---