DOP Blog: October 2005 Archives

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October 27, 2005

Developer trying to buy off Save Mount Diablo?

Contra Costa County developers are using the initiative process to roll back urban growth boundaries in areas already experienced explosive growth. This is nothing new for California politics, but their next step is quite gross. Save Mount Diablo is both an advocacy organization and basically a land trust. It was trying to buy a ranch near Mount Diablo State Park--until it was snapped up by the developers pushing the anti-growth boundary initiative. Apparently, the developers offered it to Save Mount Diablo for a price: the organization would get the land if it would drop its opposition to the initiative.

I have always been a big proponent of the land trusts that get involved with local politics and land-use decisions. This has made me do a double-take.

Read about it in The San Francisco Chronicle

Posted by dop_editor at 08:04 PM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2005

Administration continues its assault on national parks

Anyone who believes that places that are set aside as National Parks will have a long and properous future should read this editorial in the New York Times.

It's a rude awakening.

(No offense to the hard working people of the National Park Service, it's the administration appointees that are the problem.)

Editorial
The National Parks Under Siege
Published: October 21, 2005

Year after year, Americans express greater satisfaction with the National Park Service than with almost any other aspect of the federal government. From the point of view of most visitors, there is no incentive to revise the basic management policy that guides park superintendents, a policy that was last revised in 2001 and is usually re-examined only every 10 or 15 years. Longtime park service employees feel much the same way. Yet in the past two months we have seen two proposed revisions. The first, written by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary in the Interior Department, was a genuinely scandalous rewriting that would have destroyed the national park system.

On Tuesday, the Interior Department released a new draft. The question isn't whether this revision is better than Mr. Hoffman's drastic rewrite. Almost anything would be better than his version, a glaring example of the zeal to dilute conservation with commercialism among political appointees in the Interior Department. But the new draft would still undermine the national parks.

This entire exercise is unnecessary, driven by politics and ideology. The only reason for revisiting and revising the 2001 management policy was Mr. Hoffman's belief, expressed during a press conference earlier this week, that the 2001 policy is "anti-enjoyment." This will surely come as news to the 96 percent of park visitors who year after year express approval of their experiences. The kind of enjoyment Mr. Hoffman has in mind - as clearly evidenced by his draft and by remarks from Interior Secretary Gale Norton - is opening up the parks to off-road vehicles, including snowmobiles. The ongoing effort to revise the 2001 policy betrays a powerful sense, shared by many top interior officials, that the national parks are resources not to be protected but to be exploited.

This new policy document doesn't go as far as the earlier version. But it would eliminate the requirement that only motorized equipment with the least impact should be used in national parks. It would lower air-quality standards and strip away language about preserving the parks' natural soundscape - language that currently makes it hard, for instance, to justify allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone. It would also refer park superintendents to other management documents that have been revised to weaken fundamental standards and protections for the parks.

Mr. Hoffman and National Park Service officials have tried to argue that this new policy revision offers greater clarity. What it really offers is greater flexibility to interpret the rules the way they want to. The thrust of these changes is to diminish the historical, and legally upheld, premise that preservation is the central mission of the park system.

Here, for instance, is what this proposed policy revision would remove from the very heart of the park system's mission statement: "Congress, recognizing that the enjoyment by future generations of the national parks can be ensured only if the superb quality of park resources and values is left unimpaired, has provided that when there is a conflict between conserving resources and values and providing for enjoyment of them, conservation is to be predominant."

These unambiguous words contain the legal and legislative history that has protected the parks over the years from exactly the kind of change Mr. Hoffman has in mind, allowing all the rest of us to enjoy the national parks in ways that are more respectful of the future and of the parks themselves.

One of the most troubling aspects of this revised policy is how it was produced. Instead of being shaped by park service professionals thinking in a timely way about how to do their jobs better, this is a defensive document that was rushed forward to head off the more sweeping damage that Mr. Hoffman's first draft threatened to do. It is a tribute to the National Park Service veterans who worked on it that they were able to mitigate so much of the harm, even though they, too, were working directly under Mr. Hoffman's eye. They risked their jobs to protect the parks from political appointees in the Interior Department. This is a measure of how distorted the department's policies have become.

There is more potential damage on the way. At least two deeply worrying new directives have been handed down. One allows the National Park Service to solicit contributions from individuals and corporations instead of merely accepting them when they're offered. This is another way to further the privatization of the national parks and edge toward their commercialization. Privatizing the government's core responsibilities - like the national parks - is unacceptable, and so is the prospect of any greater commercial presence in the parks.

More alarming still is a directive released last week that would require park personnel who hope to advance above the middle-manager level to go through what is essentially a political screening. What we are witnessing, in essence, is an effort to politicize the National Park Service - to steer it away from its long-term mission of preserving much-loved national treasures and make it echo the same political mind-set that turned Mr. Hoffman, a former Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and a former head of the Cody, Wyo., chamber of commerce, into an architect of national park policy.

Posted by dop_editor at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

October 04, 2005

Defense of Place Editorial: Save Wagner Ranch Nature Area!!

The Contra Costa Times was kind enough to print an editorial that we wrote last week on Wagner Ranch Nature Area. The Orinda Union School District keeps trying to build a maintenance yard on an environmental education preserve, despite the fact that doing so would probably be more expensive. This story continues to unfold and I will post regular updates as new developments happen!

Check out the editorial
http://www.defenseofplace.org/press/cctimes_011005.html

Posted by dop_editor at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)

October 03, 2005

Natural Gas Drilling on Protected Open Space in Boulder

The Rocky Mountain West has been inundated with natural gas development. Now things have taken another turn for the worse with building wells on areas that managed by Boulder County Parks and Open Space. What's worse, this recent collection of gas development approvals includes a well on a property protected with a conservation easement. Read the article here from High Country News (no registration required.)

Posted by dop_editor at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)




	« September 2005 \| Main \| December 2005 » October 27, 2005 Developer trying to buy off Save Mount Diablo? Contra Costa County developers are using the initiative process to roll back urban growth boundaries in areas already experienced explosive growth. This is nothing new for California politics, but their next step is quite gross. Save Mount Diablo is both an advocacy organization and basically a land trust. It was trying to buy a ranch near Mount Diablo State Park--until it was snapped up by the developers pushing the anti-growth boundary initiative. Apparently, the developers offered it to Save Mount Diablo for a price: the organization would get the land if it would drop its opposition to the initiative. I have always been a big proponent of the land trusts that get involved with local politics and land-use decisions. This has made me do a double-take. Read about it in The San Francisco Chronicle Posted by dop_editor at 08:04 PM \| Comments (0) October 21, 2005 Administration continues its assault on national parks Anyone who believes that places that are set aside as National Parks will have a long and properous future should read this editorial in the New York Times. It's a rude awakening. (No offense to the hard working people of the National Park Service, it's the administration appointees that are the problem.) Editorial The National Parks Under Siege Published: October 21, 2005 Year after year, Americans express greater satisfaction with the National Park Service than with almost any other aspect of the federal government. From the point of view of most visitors, there is no incentive to revise the basic management policy that guides park superintendents, a policy that was last revised in 2001 and is usually re-examined only every 10 or 15 years. Longtime park service employees feel much the same way. Yet in the past two months we have seen two proposed revisions. The first, written by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary in the Interior Department, was a genuinely scandalous rewriting that would have destroyed the national park system. On Tuesday, the Interior Department released a new draft. The question isn't whether this revision is better than Mr. Hoffman's drastic rewrite. Almost anything would be better than his version, a glaring example of the zeal to dilute conservation with commercialism among political appointees in the Interior Department. But the new draft would still undermine the national parks. This entire exercise is unnecessary, driven by politics and ideology. The only reason for revisiting and revising the 2001 management policy was Mr. Hoffman's belief, expressed during a press conference earlier this week, that the 2001 policy is "anti-enjoyment." This will surely come as news to the 96 percent of park visitors who year after year express approval of their experiences. The kind of enjoyment Mr. Hoffman has in mind - as clearly evidenced by his draft and by remarks from Interior Secretary Gale Norton - is opening up the parks to off-road vehicles, including snowmobiles. The ongoing effort to revise the 2001 policy betrays a powerful sense, shared by many top interior officials, that the national parks are resources not to be protected but to be exploited. This new policy document doesn't go as far as the earlier version. But it would eliminate the requirement that only motorized equipment with the least impact should be used in national parks. It would lower air-quality standards and strip away language about preserving the parks' natural soundscape - language that currently makes it hard, for instance, to justify allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone. It would also refer park superintendents to other management documents that have been revised to weaken fundamental standards and protections for the parks. Mr. Hoffman and National Park Service officials have tried to argue that this new policy revision offers greater clarity. What it really offers is greater flexibility to interpret the rules the way they want to. The thrust of these changes is to diminish the historical, and legally upheld, premise that preservation is the central mission of the park system. Here, for instance, is what this proposed policy revision would remove from the very heart of the park system's mission statement: "Congress, recognizing that the enjoyment by future generations of the national parks can be ensured only if the superb quality of park resources and values is left unimpaired, has provided that when there is a conflict between conserving resources and values and providing for enjoyment of them, conservation is to be predominant." These unambiguous words contain the legal and legislative history that has protected the parks over the years from exactly the kind of change Mr. Hoffman has in mind, allowing all the rest of us to enjoy the national parks in ways that are more respectful of the future and of the parks themselves. One of the most troubling aspects of this revised policy is how it was produced. Instead of being shaped by park service professionals thinking in a timely way about how to do their jobs better, this is a defensive document that was rushed forward to head off the more sweeping damage that Mr. Hoffman's first draft threatened to do. It is a tribute to the National Park Service veterans who worked on it that they were able to mitigate so much of the harm, even though they, too, were working directly under Mr. Hoffman's eye. They risked their jobs to protect the parks from political appointees in the Interior Department. This is a measure of how distorted the department's policies have become. There is more potential damage on the way. At least two deeply worrying new directives have been handed down. One allows the National Park Service to solicit contributions from individuals and corporations instead of merely accepting them when they're offered. This is another way to further the privatization of the national parks and edge toward their commercialization. Privatizing the government's core responsibilities - like the national parks - is unacceptable, and so is the prospect of any greater commercial presence in the parks. More alarming still is a directive released last week that would require park personnel who hope to advance above the middle-manager level to go through what is essentially a political screening. What we are witnessing, in essence, is an effort to politicize the National Park Service - to steer it away from its long-term mission of preserving much-loved national treasures and make it echo the same political mind-set that turned Mr. Hoffman, a former Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and a former head of the Cody, Wyo., chamber of commerce, into an architect of national park policy. Posted by dop_editor at 09:31 PM \| Comments (0) October 04, 2005 Defense of Place Editorial: Save Wagner Ranch Nature Area!! The Contra Costa Times was kind enough to print an editorial that we wrote last week on Wagner Ranch Nature Area. The Orinda Union School District keeps trying to build a maintenance yard on an environmental education preserve, despite the fact that doing so would probably be more expensive. This story continues to unfold and I will post regular updates as new developments happen! Check out the editorial http://www.defenseofplace.org/press/cctimes_011005.html Posted by dop_editor at 12:06 AM \| Comments (0) October 03, 2005 Natural Gas Drilling on Protected Open Space in Boulder The Rocky Mountain West has been inundated with natural gas development. Now things have taken another turn for the worse with building wells on areas that managed by Boulder County Parks and Open Space. What's worse, this recent collection of gas development approvals includes a well on a property protected with a conservation easement. Read the article here from High Country News (no registration required.) Posted by dop_editor at 12:15 AM \| Comments (0)

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