Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick

Representing the 1st District of Arizona

WMICentral: My wish for national parks’ 100th birthday: End the maintenance backlog

Aug 30, 2016
In The News

This week, the National Park Service turns 100, and everyone’s invited to the party. You can skip the birthday cake and just take a hike — literally.

During its 100th birthday week, each of the National Park Service’s 412 parks is waiving admission fees (find a park and more info at www.nps.gov).

In Arizona, we are fortunate to have 22 national parks, including the crown jewel of the National Park Service, the Grand Canyon National Park. In my Flagstaff community, the Grand Canyon is our favorite neighbor.

The Canyon is also a favorite among visitors. In 2015, the Grand Canyon National Park hosted more than 5.5 million visitors. It is not only an environmental treasure, it’s a major economic force that supports about 6,000 jobs and attracts about $415 million in visitor spending each year.

But imagine the wear and tear from hosting that many guests. The Grand Canyon’s 50-year-old Trans-Canyon Pipeline is the most pressing example — it begs for replacement with too-frequent leaks and major breaks. This is a 6-to-8 inch aluminum pipe that carries water several miles across the Canyon to supply water to the South Rim and park visitors. Replacement would cost an estimated $130 million, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.

Similar problems afflict Arizona’s other national parks, which together drew 11.7 million visitors in 2015 and drive our local economies by supporting over 13,000 jobs. Arizona’s national parks now have a combined backlog of $580 million in deferred maintenance.

This backlog includes transportation needs such as roads, bridges and parking areas, as well as non-transportation needs such as buildings, housing, campgrounds, trails, wastewater systems and more. Unfortunately, this is also the case across the entire country — many of the Park Service’s 75,000 buildings, roads, bridges, trails, campgrounds and water systems are in a state of deterioration.

Congress repeatedly fails to provide appropriate funding for the Canyon and other national parks that are struggling with major repair backlogs. The numbers speak for themselves, and they are troubling:

  • Funding for larger maintenance projects has declined by almost half in today’s dollars over the past 10   years, according to NPCA.
  • The Park Service has 10 percent fewer full-time staff today than in Fiscal Year 2010.The backlog of infrastructure repairs is now nearly $12 billion.
  • More than half of the backlog projects are repairs needed to park transportation networks, including roads and bridges.
  • About 40 percent of the 10,000 miles of park roads are in poor to fair condition.

So, while it’s fun to celebrate our national parks’ 100th birthday, this milestone is also a serious reminder that we need to invest in the next 100 years. It’s not enough just to love our national parks and be good neighbors — this maintenance backlog demands more. Congress needs to act.

And that would be a birthday gift that keeps on giving.