ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Federal budget cuts mean you may have to revise those summer vacation plans. The sequester is leading to some closures and cutbacks on services offered at places like the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains. That's because the National Park Service is among the agencies that got hit with the automatic spending cuts that began to take effect this month.

According to Don Barger, Southeast Regional Director for the National Parks Conservation Association, the effect will be felt sharply, since there was little to no wiggle room before.

"When paying for staff and fixed costs take up about 90 percent of your budget, and you get a cut of 9 percent in your spending authority for the next six months, you don't have a lot of choices," Barger declared.

Overall, the National Park system is said to support 250,000 jobs in the country, with an annual economic impact of $30 billion.

In addition to the effect on those who want to get out and enjoy time in the great outdoors, Barger said, the forced cutbacks for the National Park Service will actually end up costing more in the long run. He stated that the NPS budget to run the entire system is one-fourteenth of one percent of the federal budget, and is an economic generator.

"These mindless across-the-board cuts will cripple one of the few consistent generators of economic activity for many regional and local economies," Barger warned.

Since each park across the country is different with different offerings, Barger said, the ways the sequester will affect them will vary. In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the sequester means three campgrounds, two picnic areas, and one horse camp will be closed. Along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the most visited unit of America's National Park System, more than 20 seasonal ranger positions have been cut.

Furthermore, he said, "They have 14 visitor contact centers up and down the 469 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway, that runs from the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, all the way down to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, and so as a result, half of those visitor centers are going to have to be closed during this tourism season."

On Thursday, a group of U.S. Representatives urged Speaker John Boehner to bring a bill to repeal the sequester to the House floor for a vote.

More information is at NPS.gov.




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Conservation groups, tribes and community organizers are praising President Joe Biden's decision Thursday to expand two national monuments in California.

Together, the monuments will gain about 120,000 acres. The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is 90 minutes northwest of Sacramento and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument lies just east of Los Angeles.

Brenda Gallegos, public lands manager for the nonprofit Hispanic Access Foundation, said millions of urban families live close to the San Gabriel Mountains.

"A lot of our Latino communities don't have access to nature, prominently, like 67% of Latino communities don't have access to green spaces or blue spaces," Gallegos pointed out. "Having these expansions designated today brings us closer to closing that nature gap."

The president used his powers under the Antiquities Act to expand the monuments in order to increase public access and protect the watershed and wildlife habitat. The move also makes progress toward Biden's goal of protecting 30% of the country's public lands by 2030.

Gallegos said Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Lake County will include an area previously known as Walker Ridge, now renamed Moluk Loyuk, which means Condor Ridge in the Patwin tribal language.

"This is important because it establishes a co-stewardship with federally recognized tribes and will return the indigenous names of these lands to them," Gallegos explained. "This continues to build that great relationship with tribes."

Land managers will now create a new management plan for the area, which could include new campsites, hiking and mountain biking trails, and even off-highway vehicle-designated routes.

The Bureau of Land Management recently released its final Public Lands Rule, which is set to put conservation on equal footing with other multiple uses taking place on public lands.

The state of Utah has come out in opposition, pointing to the impact it could have on the almost 23 million acres of BLM land in Utah.

Redge Johnson, director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, said the state supports conservation efforts but called the rule a "solution looking for a problem."

"What we have already put into conservation designations and then what you have for the acts that promote the conservation of the lands, why do you need to level that playing field?" Johnson questioned. "The playing field has more than leveled over the past 40, 50 years with the passage of all these acts."

Johnson contended Utah's lands and wildlife will suffer as a result of the rule and added it'll make mining critical metals used for batteries even more difficult. He and others, like Gov. Spencer Cox, called on the BLM to immediately withdraw the rule and work with stakeholders on more practical solutions.

Conservationists see the rule as a big win for restoring and sustaining public lands for future generations.

Johnson described Utah's public lands a "fire dependent ecosystem," adding fuel loads have accumulated drastically due to over a century's worth of fire suppression. He argued the rule will make executing and continuing vegetation management projects more difficult, including reducing the threats posed by fuel loads.

"One of the biggest contributors we have to carbon dioxide right now are wildfires, at least in the West," Johnson asserted. "Transportation, all the others, yes absolutely. But wildfires are a huge contributing factor to that. One of the best things we could do is reduce the fuel loads on some of these areas to reduce the fire risk and this rule puts that at risk."

The rule also creates the frameworks for "restoration and mitigation leases," which will allow groups to restore public lands or to offset the effects of a particular use. Johnson argued the leases will leave too many loopholes but the BLM said they will not "disturb existing authorizations."


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Conservation groups are rejoicing over the decision Friday by the Biden administration to reject a proposed mining road in Alaska.

The 211-mile Ambler Road would have sliced through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, severing the migration route for a Western Arctic Caribou herd.

Alex Johnson, interior Alaska director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said it was important for the feds to take a stand in Alaska so mining interests do not start eyeing other national parks.

"This is a very expensive, destructive and just highly speculative project that does not in any way support our clean energy goals as a country," Johnson contended. "And ultimately would permanently threaten the health and well-being of local communities and the tribes."

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski slammed the decision, warning it could limit jobs and tax revenues for Alaska by preventing exploration for minerals she said are important to national security, like copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.

Jayme Dittmar, a photographer and filmmaker from Fairbanks, said the road would have been very disruptive to the 66 Native American villages along the proposed route.

"That'd be 168 trucks passing through close vicinity to the villages," Dittmar pointed out. "There would be hundreds of bridges built. It would dismantle a subsistence livelihood that's been in place for thousands and thousands of years."

The road was seen as a negative for tourism to the Brooks Range area. According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Californians make up 9% of visitors to Alaska.