
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994                   TAG: 9406170030
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A18   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RESCUE AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARKS

With Memorial Day come and gone, this is the time of year many American families pack up, put the kids in the car and head for Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or any of our other national parks - there, it's taken for granted, to gaze upon the awesome grandeur of The Land.

But in ironic fact, so many millions of Americans visit national parks each year that it no longer can be taken for granted that this part of America's heritage will be preserved for their descendants.

Yet that was the explicit intent of earlier generations in setting aside national parks for the generation of Americans that now enjoy them. When Congress created Yellowstone in 1872, for example, the legislation called for "the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders ... and their retention in their natural condition."

That condition, national-park superintendents report today, is only average. The numbers of visitors to the parks have climbed dramatically; the funds to maintain the parks have remained flat for a decade. And pressures to commercialize them are slowly eroding the pristine conditions that make them treasures.

The Clinton administration is proposing to raise the entrance and user fees in the parks. Fine - if the revenue will go to park preservation. In the past, increases have gone into the general fund. Parks also should get a greater share of the profits from concessions within their boundaries.

Of greatest importance, though, is the need to fire the public will for preserving these parks in their natural condition. Grizzly habitat now gives way to tourist settlements in Yellowstone. Motorized pontoons roar along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. Outside development reaches across boundaries and degrades park environments: air pollution has cut visibility from 80 miles to an average of 15 from Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park here in Virginia.

Young people today complain that the huge, underfinanced increases in federal spending in the '80s threaten to rob them of their legacy. One casualty of that profligate time has been proper stewardship of the system of national parks preserved with such great foresight by our forefathers. Today's Americans must not let this part of the national heritage be lost to their children and grandchildren.

by CNB