Bishop - Obama stimulus bucks headed for Death Valley

National parks are getting a chunk of President Barack Obama’s Economic Stimulus money. Congress has approved more than $900 million in stimulus funding to make long-overdue improvements to infrastructure at more than 500 parks, including Inyo County’s own Death Valley National Park.
It’s been just a little over two months since Obama signed the bill into law on Feb. 16, and already park officials are deciding where to spend the cash.
However, the decision will not be very difficult to make, as the list of items in need of repair or upkeep is long after years of inadequate funding. Terry Baldino, Death Valley Park’s public information officer, said Tuesday that all national parks have had insufficient funding to keep up with maintenance for years, and so the money will go to repairing necessities such as roads and employee housing.
According to the National Park Conservation Association, the backlog of deferred maintenance for parks equals $9 billion.

Cyanide tanks at an old mine in the historic mining ghost town of Skidoo in Death Valley National Park. Stabilizing abandoned mines is just one of the projects apportioned federal stimulus money will help to address along with the rest of the massive backlog of maintenance projects in all 500 national parks. Photo courtesy Library of Congress

Baldino said that the park is just now getting details as to how much it expects to receive in stimulus funds, but he said it is “a fairly good chunk of money.”
The largest project to be funded will be $25 million to chip seal and/or re-pave every existing paved road in the park. Baldino said the park will be bidding the job and preparing for work to begin by this fall.
Another project that Baldino said the park is very concerned with and hopes $5 million in stimulus money will help start to remedy is dangerous abandoned mines.
Baldino said the money will go to stabilize and increase the safety at popular mines like Keane, Wonder and Skidoo. He added that while this is a good start, there are thousands of mines in the park that pose potential hazards. These mines can have deteriorating structures and/or unstable mine shafts that can pose a serious threat to visitors.
Some money will go toward the construction of a new solar-powered reverse osmosis water system at Stovepipe Wells. Baldino said the system is environmentally friendly and will save on power costs. This solar-powered system adds to the park’s already growing number of photovoltaic cell systems in the park including sun-powered water heaters at Furnace Creek.
Another $1 million will go toward a number of smaller projects including improvements to historic buildings, seal coating parking lots and addressing deficiencies in employee housing.
Baldino added that the park hopes to use some money to replace the 1970s-era trailers the park uses for employee housing. “The trailers are quite past their prime,” Baldino said.
He also said the stimulus money should allow the park to hire some part-time or seasonal help for the short term, but it is still uncertain whether the money will generate any full-time, permanent jobs.
According to Baldino, it is hoped that once the parks get caught up on the larger maintenance projects, funding could be freed up to go toward hiring more staff, or to add more parks or pieces to the system.
The NPCA is heralding the funding as a step toward fixing the “crumbling infrastructure” of national parks. However, “there is much more to do to restore our national parks,” NPCA President Tom Kiernan said in a press release.
NPCA sees national parks not only as the country’s legacy and source of pride, but also as “economic engines that we clearly want to see running smoothly.”
An economic study of national parks commissioned by NPCA concludes that the national park system “is an economic asset at risk.”
The findings in the study are that for every dollar invested in the park system budget, the system generates more than $4. The study highlights the Kings Sequoia Canyon National Park which in 2004 had a budget of $23.1 million, but generated $58.6 million in “total recreational benefits,” meaning money spent in hotels, restaurants and specialty shops.
NPCA also claims that the national park system is responsible for $13.3 billion in local private-sector economic activity and supports 267,000 private-sector jobs, mostly tourism related and not including the federal jobs.
But, the park system suffers a massive funding shortfall every year that turns regular maintenance projects into a massive backlog of now-serious undertakings, with little money leftover to address larger issues of conservation and resource management.
“Investing in our parks means we’re serious about creating jobs, upgrading our parks for the 21st century with solar, and protecting our desert’s rich natural and cultural heritage,” said Mike Cipra, NPCA’s California desert program manager.