Kevin Collins is director of park recreation and use, and acting director of government affairs, at the National Parks Conservation Association.

Monday, 30 Jul 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Drive along the Gulf Coast from Pensacola, Fla., to Gulfport, Miss., and you’ll see a stretch of development filled with casinos, souvenir shops, tattoo artists, and pawnbrokers. You won’t see very much of the natural beauty that once dominated this area, unless you head out to Gulf Islands National Seashore, 136,000 acres of barrier islands, unspoiled beaches, coastal forests, and rich fishing grounds.

Gulf coast scenery.
Photo: Kevin Collins.

I was lucky enough to visit Gulf Islands National Seashore last week as part of my job as director of park recreation and use for the National Parks Conservation Association. NPCA is the only national nonprofit dedicated solely to protecting the natural and cultural treasures that are contained within the U.S. National Park system. NPCA was founded in 1919, just three years after the park system itself. We have 450,000 members around the country who agree that national parks should be preserved unimpaired for future generations.

I was at Gulf Islands because the park staff there has taken the commendable step of announcing they will ban jet skis and other personal watercraft from the park’s waters. Most people agree that these noisy, polluting, high-speed thrill-craft don’t belong in national parks set aside to preserve natural resources. But the personal watercraft industry has been extremely aggressive about fighting National Park Service efforts to restrict these machines. At national parks around the country, the industry has organized its dealers and rental operators to oppose Park Service regulations. I went to Gulf Islands to find a local resident who could spend a few months this summer organizing public support for the ban on jet skis.

Before I tell you more about my trip, let me share some facts about personal watercrafts:

• PWCs are highly polluting. PWCs have two-stroke engines that release up to 30 percent of their fuel/oil mixture directly into the air and water. The California Air Resources Board reports that riding two hours on a 100-horsepower PWC emits as much pollution as driving 139,000 miles in a 1998 passenger car.

Jet skis may be fun to ride, but it is not fun to be subjected to the noise and pollution that they emit. National parks began to have problems with jet skis in the early 1990s. In 1994, Everglades National Park was the first park to prohibit them, because they damaged shallow grass flats and near-shore areas commonly used by birds and fish for feeding and reproduction. As an advocate for the entire National Park System, NPCA supported the Everglades decision but also urged the Park Service to adopt a rule that would cover all parks.

Soon to be history: a jet ski at Gulf Islands National Seashore.
Photo: Kevin Collins.

On 21 Mar. 2000, after receiving 45,000 public comments that supported removing jet skis from national parks, the National Park Service prohibited jet skis from most parks. However, a number of other parks, including National Seashores and National Lakeshores, were left to decide individually whether jet skis should be allowed. Gulf Islands was one of those parks.

In Gulfport, Miss., I found Raines Rushin, a fisher, shrimper, and boater who loves the Gulf Coast — and who believes that personal watercraft don’t belong in Gulf Islands National Seashore. Raines readily acknowledged that he is not a traditional environmentalist. He does, however, agree that jet skis can damage sensitive marine habitats, that they cause conflicts with other users of the water, and that they detract from the special place that is Gulf Islands National Seashore.

Raines agreed to work with NPCA this summer to engage local citizens, businesses, boaters, and public officials in a dialogue about why they should support the Park Service’s decision on jet skis. If our past experience is any guide, he will find a good deal of agreement in the community. By this time next year, the waters of Gulf Islands National Seashore should be cleaner and quieter, and a little more protected for all of us to enjoy.

If you would like a short video that shows some of the serious problems associated with jet skis, just send me an email with your name and address at kcollins@npca.org.

Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Last week, I attended a short conference in Great Smoky Mountains National Park to discuss some of the problems that face this park and national parks in general. I came away reminded how much national parks are affected by the landscape and society around them.

The conference was organized by the office of Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). Sen. Graham has taken a great interest in national park issues, visiting several on his own and with regional staff from the National Parks Conservation Association. Sen. Graham’s interest in the parks is driven in part by an awareness of the population wave that is poised to crash over the U.S. He points out that by the year 2100 the Census Bureau predicts there will be 570 million people in the U.S. If that is correct, the pressure on the national parks from surrounding development and heavy visitation will be enormous.

I flew to Knoxville, Tenn., from Washington, D.C. The next morning at the airport Hampton Inn, “continental breakfast” included a southern delicacy — biscuits and white gravy. It is good to be reminded that in a country where places look increasingly like everywhere else, there are still small regional differences.

NPCA’s Southeast Regional Director Don Barger picked me up, and we started the two-hour drive to the park. The first part of the drive was along the fast food-lined interstate sprawl of Knoxville. This all-too-common American landscape depresses me tremendously: It is mostly “big box” stores and quickie marts designed to serve the automobile, not people. That a nation with immense financial and intellectual resources chooses to live in these dreary surroundings makes me despair.

On that happy note, we left the city behind and entered rural Tennessee. It is a beautiful state, but housing developments are springing up, covering farms and forests alike. I can’t understand the person who would bulldoze a piece of forest, replant tiny saplings around big new houses, and call the whole thing “Sherwood Forest Acres.”

Right about here, you may be thinking that I’m getting paid to help protect our national parks, so why don’t I start talking about the Smokies. Unfortunately (or maybe it is for the best), the parks can’t be isolated from the land and the people around them. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most heavily visited park in the National Park System. Some 10 million people go there every year, almost as many as Yellowstone, Yosemi
te, and Grand Canyon combined. Just outside the park are the “gateway communities” of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, where many of these park visitors stay and eat and shop.

With apologies to the local chambers of commerce, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are nightmares of traffic congestion, ugly development, and bad planning. If these towns were located just anywhere, those problems would be their own to worry about — or not. But they are adjacent to one of our most magnificent national parks, a place that holds incredible natural treasures that belong to all of us. And that means that we all have a stake in what happens around their edges. In this case, it is not pretty.

At the National Parks Conservation Association, our regional directors work closely with local gateway communities to promote development that is compatible with the protection of nearby national park resources. We recently recognized the people of Springdale, Utah, for their participation in the development of an alternative transportation system at Zion National Park. Thanks to this new system, traffic congestion in parts of the park has been eliminated and visitors see cougars instead of cars.

Don and I weren’t in the Smokies to work on gateway development issues, but there is really no way to avoid them. Our Gatlinburg hotel was a skyscraping concrete tower that Don said somehow had gotten an exemption from local zoning ordinances. It looms over the skyline and draws the eye to it, instead of to the mountain ridges of the park beyond.

Later, we would go inside the park to learn about more air pollution problems, efforts to preserve biodiversity, and the hazards of introduced plants and animals. Tonight, we sat in the hotel bar drinking margaritas and talking about why national parks are special places. The answer (slightly inebriated) is from John Muir: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.” In America, national parks are rapidly becoming the last places where that opportunity exists.

Wednesday, 1 Aug 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The conference in Great Smoky Mountains National Park that I wrote about yesterday included a tour with park officials. We were joined by Fran Mainella, the new director of the National Park Service. This was Mainella’s first official day on the job, so the park had a small ceremony where employees could meet her before we started the tour. Mainella was most recently head of the state park system in Florida, and the employees I talked to were pleased to have a self-described “parkie” as their new boss.

But some also expressed caution about whether Mainella would embrace and respect the difference in missions between the national parks and state parks. The purpose of the national parks is to protect places and objects that are significant to the history of the United States, from Yellowstone to the Liberty Bell. As part of that preservation mandate, national parks stress educating visitors about those nationally significant resources. State parks, on the other hand, are much more focused on providing outdoor recreation. They also preserve places that are environmentally or culturally important to the state, but not necessarily to the entire nation. These two missions are certainly complementary and both are extremely important, but the differences are significant.

Mainella made it clear that she understands the importance of protecting the resources of national parks, and we set off through the Smokies to see some of the challenges facing that particular park.

At our first stop, we tramped a short way into the woods to learn about the park’s “All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory.” Many people are surprised to learn that not one national park has a complete inventory of its natural resources. Obviously, this dramatically complicates the task of caring for those resources.

Great Smoky Mountains plans to become the first national park to identify all life-forms in the park all the way down to fungi. It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 species of plants and animals living in the park, only 9,800 of which are known today. Completing the “All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory” will create a baseline from which to measure change in the park and on which management decisions can be based. Becky Nichols, the park’s entomologist, told me the program has already discovered 124 species that are completely new to science, and 1,337 that were previously unknown in the park. (For more information on the ATBI, check out www.discoverlife.org.)

The view from Clingmans Dome on a good-visibility day.

Photo: U.S Park Service.

When the tour continued, we drove to the highest point in the park, Clingmans Dome, at 6,380 feet. Up there, the ecosystem resembles the forests of northern Canada. This is also the site of one of the park’s air-quality monitoring stations. As we got off the bus, the first thing we noticed was thousands of dead and dying spruce fir trees in every direction. I thought to myself, “I knew the air in the park was bad, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

It turns out, however, that the trees of this rare ecosystem were killed by a nonnative insect accidentally introduced into the U.S. The culprit is a tiny bug called a wooly adelgid that infests the trees in such numbers that it cuts off their ability to transport nutrients — the trees starve to death. A close cousin of this bug is also killing most of the hemlocks in this national park and others in the East. The sight of these skeletal trees was shocking to all of us and a reminder of how national parks can be harmed by events completely outside their boundaries. In this case, the adelgid arrived on decorative nursery stock and was blown by the wind into the park.

Also carried on the wind are the man-made pollutants that are slowly destroying the park’s clean air and magnificent views. Although air pollution is a problem throughout the National Park System, some of the worst damage has occurred at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the park’s solar-powered monitoring station records it all.

The view from Clingmans Dome on a bad-visibility day.

Photo: U.S Park Service.

Because of sulfates, tiny particles created by burning fossil fuels, this park is the haziest region in North America during the summer. Park vistas that once stretched 90 miles or more have been reduced by 60 percent year-round and a staggering 80 percent during summer months. The current annual average visibility is just 15 miles in the summer. Sometimes it is less than one mile. Look at these Park Service photos for a comparison of clear and hazy days in the park. On the good day, you can about 100 miles; the bad day is just 20 miles. (Quick! What do you call the device that measures how far you can see? A nephelometer — no kidding!)

And it is not just the view that is being damaged. The climb up to the top of Clingmans Dome made most of us breathe heavily, increasing our exposure to ground-level ozone, a serious human respiratory irritant that can cause permanent lung damage. Average daily ozone exposures are two times higher in the park than urban areas such as Atlanta, and regular health advisories are issued. Frankly, I was stunned to learn that hiking in a national park could be more hazardous to my lungs than breathing the air in downtown Washington, D.C.

Most of the pollution hurting the Smokies comes from power plants, some of which are located hundreds of miles away. As part of my job with NPCA, I work to per
suade Congress to force these companies to clean up their act. The NPCA strongly supports bills such as S. 556, The Clean Power Act. This bill would require dramatic emissions reductions by 2007. Sulfur dioxide emissions would drop by 75 percent, nitrogen oxide emissions by 75 percent, mercury emissions by 90 percent, and carbon dioxide emissions to their level in 1990.

The Clean Power Act is one of those bills that seems so self-evidently good for the country (never mind national parks) that, as a lobbyist, it is hard for me to understand why more politicians do not support it. One reason is that they do not hear enough from their constituents. If you want to help clean up the air we all breathe, I urge you to go to NPCA’s Activist Center and write your Representive. It only takes a minute, and it does make a difference. End of commercial.

We hiked down off Clingmans Dome (easier down than up) and headed for the hotel. It had been a long day, and we were all quiet. It is always sobering to be reminded how many threats there are to national parks and how difficult it is to protect them, even though they are supposedly our most protected places. I think it was a good way for Director Mainella to spend her first day on the job.

Thursday, 2 Aug 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C.

I met today with Linda Fisher, deputy administrator of the U.S. EPA. We have a lot of meetings in Washington, D.C.: Some lead to dramatic progress on important issues, some are a complete waste of time, but most are small steps toward a long-term goal. Today’s EPA meeting fell into the latter category.

Snowmobiles chasing down bison in Yellowstone National Park.

Photo: Kevin Collins.

We met with her to talk about the “Nonroad Large Spark-Ignition Engine, Recreational Engine (Marine and Land-Based) and Highway Motorcycle Rule.” In English, that translates to a regulation to control the pollution from the two-stroke engines in snowmobiles, ATVs, boats engines, and motorcycles. EPA was sued because it had not completed this rule on time and was subsequently ordered by the court to release a proposal by 14 Sep. 2001.

The delay in getting this rule out is not the fault of the Bush administration. It is, however, an opportunity for President Bush to demonstrate his commitment to clean air and public health protection. So far, evidence of such a commitment has been noticeably lacking.

NPCA cares about the outcome of this rule, because it affects many of the recreational vehicles used in national parks — especially snowmobiles. I attended the EPA meeting with representatives of several other groups. Some have much broader missions than NPCA, like the Sierra Club, and some are even more focused, like the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), an interstate association of air quality control divisions in the Northeast.

Many things I work on are like that — coalitions of multiple groups that all care about a large environmental issue, but that specialize in one small piece of it. Working together, we can bring a lot more influence and expertise to bear on an issue. And it helps chronically short-staffed environmental groups to cover a multitude of issues.

In this case, we want EPA to strengthen their proposed rule in several ways. For example, we believe the agency should set pollution standards that would effectively preclude the sale of two-stroke engines. In the past five years, a growing body of scientific literature has shown that uncontrolled two-stroke engines cause tremendous levels of air and water pollution in the form of high levels of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter. In 1996, the EPA confirmed that these engines dump 25 to 30 percent of their fuel, unburned, directly into the environment. (The jet skis that I wrote about on Tuesday are powered by two-stroke engines.)

Snowmobiles waiting at the gate to Yellowstone National Park.

Photo: Kevin Collins.

In contrast, four-stroke engines (a smaller version of the basic design used in automobiles) are much less polluting. Russell Long of the Bluewater Network stressed to EPA that two-stroke engines can produce as much as 200 grams of hydrocarbon pollution per horsepower hour. In contrast, cars produce only one-half a gram. Russell participated in the meeting by phone from California and made some excellent points. Bluewater Network has done tremendously good work in publicizing the pollution caused by two-strokes.

For my part, I was particularly concerned that EPA regulate the noise emissions from these vehicles just as they will regulate air pollution emissions. After all, we call it noise pollution, right?

One of our arguments to EPA was that many of these small recreational vehicles — snowmobiles, ATVs, off-road motorcycles — are used in protected natural areas, including national parks. In these areas, the opportunity to hear natural sounds — wind in the trees, rain showers, wolf calls, the crash of waves — is an incredibly valuable resource, on par with unclouded vistas and clean water. In fact, the National Park Service officially recognizes natural “soundscapes” (the aural equivalent of landscapes) as a protected resource.

I think EPA was sympathetic, and they plan to take public comments on whether they should regulate vehicle noise. The problem is that for the last several years Congress has not provided any money for EPA’s noise regulation office. EPA has the authority to regulate noise under the Noise Control Act of 1972, but without funds it is difficult to get much done.

I reminded Ms. Fisher of EPA’s own comments on this: “Snowmobile engine emissions are of particular concern in environmentally sensitive areas, such as Yellowstone National Park.” I believe that goes double for noise emissions. A study during the winter of 2000 at Yellowstone found that snowmobile noise interfered with visitors’ ability to hear natural sounds at 12 out of 13 popular locations, including Morning Glory Pool and Grand Prismatic Spring. At Old Faithful, the world’s most famous geyser, snowmobile engines were the dominant sound 100 percent of the time. The pictures accompanying today’s diary tell the story of snowmobiles in Yellowstone — noisy, foul, and tremendously hard on wildlife. Even the best possible rule from EPA won’t fix all of those problems.

All in all, our meeting with EPA was cordial and, I think, productive. Hopefully, the agency will end up making the proposed rule somewhat better for the environment. But even if they do, it must still be approved by the White House-level Office of Management and Budget. I guess we will have to have another meeting.

Friday, 3 Aug 2001

PHILADELPHIA, Pa

I was in Philadelphia yesterday, sitting behind a one-way mirror listening to ordinary people talk about what national parks mean to them. It was fascinating.

One of the things we worry about at the National Parks Conservation Association — and other environmental groups — is whether our “message” is being conveyed in a way the general public responds to. This is a crucial question, because we depend on public support for our financial survival and political successes.

At NPCA, it is not so much a question of whether the public supports protecting national parks — everyone pretty much does, at least in theory. Our concern is about the phrasing of our message. We use the word “resonate” a lot. As in, “Which resonates best: ‘Parks preserve our historic legacy’ or ‘Parks preserve the past?’” I know that mi
ght seem like a ridiculous distinction, but these fine shades of meaning can translate into the difference between an NPCA member becoming engaged and calling her congressional representative, or throwing our letter in the trash.

Periodically, we commission some “message testing,” often through focus groups. This is a fairly common practice, not just with environmental groups but throughout American industry. Can’t you just see the Kellogg corporation doing a focus group on whether Captain Crunch works better with an eye patch or without? It is so common that some people in our Philadelphia sample had been chosen to participate in focus groups multiple times.

As I said, NPCA’s “protect national parks” message is fairly simple and does resonate with a large percentage of people. But sometimes, like when we are starting a major new campaign, we need to get a better understanding of the nuances of what that means to different people. Right now, NPCA is launching a campaign to win public and political support for a major increase in funding for the National Park System. We have done detailed financial analyses that show national parks do not have nearly enough money for the basic jobs that are necessary to preserve these places. NPCA has estimated that the parks need an additional $600 – $700 million dollars annually from Congress to really make sure the parks are protected, well-maintained, and educational for visitors. Right now, their budget is about $1.4 billion every year, so they need half again as much. And the worst funding shortfall is in the two most important areas for parks — resource protection and visitor education.

Personally, I think this ought to be a no-brainer. Our national parks represent an incredible public treasure and $700 million is relative pocket change in Washington. From farm subsidies to Stars Wars, the government spends billions of dollars more than that on programs of questionable benefit. The problem is that the 286 million people who visited national parks last year are not an organized political force. National parks are not a recognized political constituency in Washington, so they get short shrift when it comes time for appropriations. (I should note that the other public lands, like national forests and wildlife refuges, are even more overlooked.)

In Philadelphia, we had two focus groups: one of NPCA members, one of non-members. They sat in an ordinary conference room — except it had a big mirror at one end and microphones dangling from the ceiling. We sat in a room behind the mirrors, trying to be quiet and not move around too much. The focus participants were told we were there. Usually, people looked toward the mirror and even waved, but after that they seemed to forget all about us.

We had a wide range of people and professions — a banjo player, a travel agent, a school bus driver, a movie critic, a nurse, a history teacher, a mechanic. Some had kids, some did not. All had been to at least a few national parks; one had visited more than 150 (behind the glass we all cheered silently). There was a very dramatic difference in the levels of detailed knowledge about national park issues between NPCA members and nonmembers. That made our membership and magazine departments very happy, because it showed that people do read all the mailings we send out.

After introductions, the facilitator asked for a free association of what national parks meant to them. “Beauty” and “solitude” were common themes. But so were “overcrowded” and “cheap vacation.” There were very few strong negatives associated with parks, which is good news for our campaign.

The facilitator then began to probe their reactions to various messages, all of which ended with a request to write their congressional representative and ask that national parks be given more funding. These sample paragraphs tried to test recognizable themes. Sample A began, “National parks provide us with opportunities for personal challenge, adventure, fun, and pleasure.” B was “Our national parks provide an educational experience unlike any other.” C was “Our national parks provide a home for America’s diverse populations of plants and animals.” E was “Our national parks are the legacy we leave our children.” F was “Our national parks provide us with some of the most beautiful, majestic, and awe-inspiring places on Earth.”

The samples were five to six sentences long, and people liked or disliked various wordings, but both groups picked the same top three overall messages. First was “F,” second was “E,” and third was “B.”

“F” seemed to be so popular because it painted a word picture of what a national park should be. “That’s why we are going there,” one man said. “E” touched people’s senses of continuity and responsibility. One quote was, “We don’t want to be the generation that screws it up.” And “B” seemed to get at the historical significance of many parks. “General Lee stood right here,” one person said about Gettysburg. “It gives me shivers.”

Just as interesting was what was not picked. The message that works best for me is “C,” saving endangered plants and animals. That was not a big winner with the focus groups. One person said that environmental groups are “always overreacting.” “A” was roundly dismissed. “It makes national parks sound like a substitute for your local gym,” one woman said.

This week we have done similar focus groups in San Francisco and Nashville. I have not seen the reports yet, so I don’t know what messages worked there. Maybe there will be some kind of national consensus; maybe we will have to target our message for regional differences. But the overall good news is that people love national parks, and there is some general agreement about their basic purposes. For our funding campaign, the best news is that people said they would take action, that they would call or write their congressional reps. But only if we get the message right.