Parks lose ground - Press Enterprise Editorial

America's national parks are underfunded by as much as $600 million a year. That is distressing, but it's more of a sad refrain than a news headline. Whenever the federal budget has been stressed - and that's been almost every year for the last quarter-century - the parks have been among the first squeezed.

Ultimately, that scrimping packs a cumulative heavy blow. It's not just maintenance that's deferred. It means the collection of artifacts at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument sits in a storeroom, not on display. It means there are no rangers to protect Chaco Canyon cliff-dwellings from relic thieves. The National Parks Conservation Association annually lists the 10 most endangered parks. No. 5 on the current list is Joshua Tree National Park, which sprawls across the deserts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

(snip)

We think something larger would be in order: a one-time, nationwide campaign to preserve all the parks, modeled on the 1980s campaign to refurbish the Statue of Liberty.

Over the longer haul, however, there's only one answer. The national parks are Americans' heritage. Congress should give them the budget respect they deserve.

Online at: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_op_29_ed_national_parks.dfab.html

Raid = privatization.

Yep, that's right... plans are taking shape for a $600M road through the Great Smokies National Park. The website for this plan is:
http://northshoreroad.info

Wanna tell 'em what they can do with the road? Find the comment link and blast away. The website doesn't go into details about the road, of course, but you can trust me that the $600M price tag is what it will end up being. Hell, they want to build a $400M dollar bridge as part of the plan.

All the while, Parks around the country are being destroyed piece by piece, as the original message shows. Oh yeah, the place they want to put the $600M road is through the last, largest roadless area in the eastern US. Some people want to destroy our Parks. Tell 'em NO!

...roughly the amount that Halliburton over-charged the military for gasoline and other fuels in Iraq?