BIG Shortfall in the National Park Service Budget...and Ultrarunning

Seems that our beloved NPS--and when I say "beloved" I am not being facetious, this is a vital agency for the things we love--and which has an approximately $11.5 billion backlog on deferred maintenance costs, according to this mainstream Marketplace article.

The article focused on the famous DC cherry blossoms, in full bloom as we speak, but it's part of the larger issue that affects all 50 states:

Craig Obey, the senior vice president of the National Parks Conservation Association, said that the federal neglect of the National Park Service’s funding is a bipartisan problem that has grown more severe in the past 30 years.

“I think the parks have been dealing with less for quite a while, they’ve been asked to do more with less and we are at the point where they’re able to do less with less,” Obey said.

And indeed, the “less” is lessening, Obey said, “because the Park Service gets about between $200 and $300 million less than they need each year just to keep it even, not even to begin reducing it.”

Too bad there is not sufficient money elsewhere in the national budget that we could prioritize for this purpose.  Wait!!!...maybe I just found some money:

The future bill from the Afghan war is likely to run into hundreds of billions of dollars more. The Pentagon has indicated it wants funding of $120 billion for 2016-19 for operations in Afghanistan, although the eventual cost will depend on the future mission that the White House decides on.

This on top of the $765 billion already spent, according to the CNBC article.

Do you think that maybe we could spend this money on parks instead of war?  Butter instead of guns?  Trails on which to run in the backcountry instead of airfields and bases?  And leave a better legacy for our children and grandchildren?

National Park Rescues...and Ultrarunning

My local paper ran a decent story in its outdoors section entitled National Parks: They get rescued, we get the bill (15 Sep 2013).

I'd link to the online version, but it seems not to be there.  Also, the original source for the feed came from reporter Gary A. Warner at the Orange County Register, but they have a paywall up so I cannot excerpt easily from the article.  For what it's worth, here's the link.

OK, attribution aside, the article pointed out that National Park Service rescues cost money and follow a pattern of causation:

1. People are not in good enough physical condition to do what they try to do.
2. Errors in judgement (failing to turn back, choosing wrong route, underestimating time till dark, etc.).
3. Not having proper clothing or gear.

We all could learn from that list, right, when we run in the backcountry?

Oh, and the article goes on to discuss the notion of having the rescuees pay for the search and rescue efforts on their behalf.  I get the sentiment, but I see a slippery slope: just how dumb or careless do you have to be to trip the payment threshold? 

What if there was a 10% chance of thunderstorms, you didn't pack the right rain protection, and the storm came anyway, sending you into hypothermia and rescue?  Were you negligent?

Also factor in the idea that if people know they might get hit with a hefty rescue bill, wouldn't there be a great incentive to delay calling for help...possibly waiting until it was too late?

Plus the parallel with other public safety entities: we don't seem willing to charge, say, homeowners for fire department responses to fire caused by careless smoking, do we?  Or police response to getting mugged when you chose to walk through a bad neighborhood?

Slippery slopes, indeed.