Trails, bathrooms, wait times: How National Park staffing cuts could impact your next visit
(NEXSTAR) — Planning to visit a national park this year? You may find limited or all-out unavailable services.
Last week, the National Park Service fired 1,000 people, sparking backlash from now-unemployed rangers and advocacy groups. The Washington Post did, however, report that NPS was restoring previously rescinded job offers to 5,000 temporary workers.
“Allowing parks to hire seasonal staff is essential, but staffing cuts of this magnitude will have devastating consequences for parks and communities,” Theresa Pierno, President and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association. “We are concerned about smaller parks closing visitor center doors and larger parks losing key staff including wastewater treatment operators.”
Pierno went on to say that slashing 1,000 full-time jobs from the parks “is reckless and could have serious public safety and health consequences,” especially ahead of the peak season.
“We need adequate staff,” Phil Francis, the executive director for the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, told Nexstar earlier this month. “We don’t have that. It’s going to be a really difficult year to provide the kind of service and protection that we need.”
Francis previously warned that cutting staffing could lead to visitor centers closing, lines becoming longer, and a reduction in regular maintenance, like cleaning restrooms.
Guides, trail maintenance workers, and those who “perform daring searches and rescues” may also be impacted by the job cuts, Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, said.
Parks may also be forced to reconsider when they’re open and what services they are able to offer, Cary Dupuy, the Texas regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, told the Texas Standard.
Some national parks were already in a bind following the hiring freeze put on federal departments in January.
Yosemite National Park recently announced many of its campgrounds would be unavailable for several weeks across June and July, the peak season for one of the most visited NPS sites. Zion National Park is already feeling the impacts of limited staffing. The park — which has been understaffed for years, according to local authorities — could spiral into “chaos” without enough rangers, the mayor of Springdale, located just outside the park’s south entrance, told local outlet KSTU.
In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, several lawmakers warned that a lack of staffing at national parks could impact visitor attendance and have a spillover effect that could economically devastate communities around the parks.
In 2023, the National Park Service recorded more than 325.5 million recreational visits, up 13 million over 2022. Those visitors spent roughly $26.4 billion in the gateway communities around the national parks, data from NPS shows. That, in turn, supported 415,000 thousand jobs, "$19.4 billion in labor income, $32.0 billion in value added, and $55.6 billion in economic output in the national economy," the agency said last year.
Should the conditions at parks start to wane, visitors could change their plans, Brengel told The New York Times.
“If someone has a terrible day and just looks at their family and says, ‘Forget about it,’ and leaves, that means the person who owns the hotel isn’t getting paid, the people who work in the hotel aren’t getting paid, the people who would make dinner and breakfast for these folks.”
Thousands of people from the Interior Department were terminated last week, The Hill previously reported. In addition to NPS workers, that includes roughly 3,400 in the U.S. Forest Service, 800 in the Bureau of Land Management, and 400 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to USA Today.
The National Park Service did not respond to Nexstar’s request for comment but told The Denver Post it “is assessing our most critical staffing needs for park operations for the coming season and is working to hire key positions.”
Almost two dozen national parks broke visitation records in 2023, NPS data shows. Since the pandemic, visitors have experienced long wait times and crowds, leading many sites to enact reservation systems, permits, and timed entry processes.
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