PARKS PAYING A PRICE

People love their national parks, but paying to prevent their
deterioration is becoming a struggle over the price of preserving
America's heritage.

From California's majestic Yosemite Valley to Pennsylvania's
historic Gettysburg battlefield, years of tight budgets have left
parks struggling to fix trails, roads and campgrounds, with fewer
rangers to keep the peace and lead nature hikes.

The shortage of park rangers helped opened the way for Mexican drug
cartels to establish guarded marijuana farms in remote areas of Kings
Canyon and Sequoia national parks, and to a lesser degree, Yosemite
National Park.

The marijuana farms appear limited to those vast California parks,
officials say.

Conservationists and a growing number of federal lawmakers say that
it is time to rescue the national parks with more stable funding.

"There is a problem. The parks are in a tight squeeze," said Rep.
Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican sponsoring a bill that would let
taxpayers donate to the park system through a check-off box on income
tax forms.

Souder was in San Francisco last week to lead the sixth in a series
of hearings on national park conditions and funding.

National Park Service officials in Washington, D.C., asserted that
the park system is making progress toward President Bush's campaign
pledge to clean up a $5 billion maintenance backlog.

"We're getting in good shape," said Elaine Sevy, a park service
spokeswoman. "Is everything perfect? No. But we have 388 sites and a
massive infrastructure. We're trying to take a more strategic
approach. But it will take time."

Some environmentalists and current and retired park service employees
indicated that things are getting worse, not better.

The park service budget increased 24 percent from $2.1 billion in
2000 to $2.6 billion this year, but that is not enough to keep up
with inflation, conservationists contend.

Unexpected security demands after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks added
new costs for park service police to guard national monuments and
park rangers to guard dams, bridges and other potential targets, park
watchdogs say.

"The staffing is not good. The parks are deteriorating," said Bill
Wade, spokesman for the 450-member Coalition of Concerned National
Park Service Employees.

California's 24 national parks and historic sites are also affected.

Yosemite has fewer rangers and fewer ranger-led walks and campfire
activities than a few years ago, said Michael Tollefson, the park's
superintendent.

Bathrooms are not cleaned as often, and road repairs and trail
maintenance are not done as soon, he said.

Visitors are unlikely to notice the difference so far, but that could
change in time if the situation persists, he said.

When the park service created the Port Chicago Naval Magazine
Memorial Site north of Concord in 1994, park managers in the East Bay
got no extra money or staff members to run it.

So they diverted employees and money from the John Muir and Eugene
O'Neill national historic sites for guided tours of the new place,
said Glen Fuller, former superintendent of the three park service
sites in Contra Costa County.

Fuller said his staff to run the three facilities declined over a
decade, and he could not afford to replace his maintenance chief.

As a result, a project to accurately restore John Muir's rose and
plant garden and orchard has struggled, he said.

"We have a very dedicated staff and volunteers, but it's not enough,"
said Fuller, who retired a year ago.

In the hearing in San Francisco last week, conservationists testified
that the parks are suffering from years of neglect.

"Flat budgets for California parks have led to crumbling
infrastructures," said Gene Sykes, board chairman of the National
Parks Conservation Association.

Mexican drug cartels have created marijuana farms in remote areas of
Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks, and at the edge of Yosemite, he said.

The farms tear up and poison the environment, and the armed guards
are a threat to back-country hikers, he said.

While no park user has been attacked in a marijuana farm in the three
national parks, a state warden was wounded in early August in a raid
on a farm in the Sierra Azul open space preserve in the Santa Cruz
Mountains. A farm worker was killed during the shootout.

California is more attractive to drug cartels because post-Sept. 11
border security has made it harder to smuggle illegal drugs into the
country, said Laura Whitehouse of the parks conservation association.

The park service has taken steps to beef up patrols, but it is not
enough, she said.

Authorities removed 44,000 marijuana plants from Sequoia and Kings
Canyon parks in 2004, and 1,351 plants this year, she said.

Whitehouse attributed the drop this year to cagey growers switching
to smaller, harder-to spot farms.

To help the park system, the conservation association calls for
Congress to ramp up park spending.

But that may be difficult to achieve as the federal government
struggles with higher costs for pension and health care programs and
the war in Iraq, Souder, the Indiana lawmaker said.

He predicted that many Americans would contribute to parks if his
plan wins approval for the check-off box on income tax forms.

Souder said he also thinks the park service should look at more joint
park operations with state agencies, such as the Redwood state and
national parks in Northern California.

He also wants the park service to be more creative about attracting
charitable contributions. Movie stars could be effective
fund-raisers, he suggested.

Some park fans said they worry donors will close their wallets if
their gifts would go toward basic park operations. "Contributions
should provide a margin of excellence," Sykes said, "not of survival."