It is a long-embraced tradition of American Life to bash the government and the men and women who work for it. If you want a taste of the Good Life, get a soft government job. As a little kid I remember passing a road construction crew and hearing my grandfather grumble, "One guy to dig, five guys to watch. And I'm paying for all six."
I used that line just the other day.
Now I find myself in a somewhat contradictory position--I'm a frequent critic of government land agencies; yet, I was one of those very same 'useless feds' for more than a decade. Should I hate myself for what I did? Should I be proud for having the good sense to get out? Or ashamed of myself for bashing the good people who once sent me a paycheck (as pitiful as it might have been) to feed my chips and salsa habit?
It would be fair to say that all three apply in my case. My ten years with the National Park Service at Arches National Park were some of the most rewarding and frustrating times of my life. I cannot recall higher or lower moments. I can't imagine such bliss and such misery.
Early on I came to learn that the National Park Service was just as wasteful and mismanaged as any other agency of the federal government. As the years passed I saw it grow worse and I left the NPS more than a decade ago--the mind boggles at what it has become today.
But it was a familiar story. Some divisions of the park always had money to burn while others went begging. Interpretation has been the perennial NPS division that waits for the leftovers and road and trailbuilding divisions have always been able to command a lion's share of the funding. Interpretive programs were constantly being cut back for lack of staff and many walks and talks were conducted by volunteers (and they still are). Yet the big construction projects always had money. In my last years as a seasonal ranger, frustrated to tears, I started taking notes about all the waste and I still have them.
I'll never forget the infamous Devils Garden Trail rebuilding project. In the mid-80s, more than $65,000 became available for major reconstruction work of the park's premier trail---the Landscape Arch Trail. No visitors had complained about the condition of the trail and it was already eight feet wide at the time. The Trail Supervisor defended the project, claiming that when it rained, the several large puddles on the trail were difficult for hikers to circumvent. Of course it rarely rains in the desert and puddles dry up very quickly in 10% humidity. But never mind all that.
My fellow seasonal ranger Mike Salamacha and I attached an informal survey to the trail registration box. It said: "There is a plan to spend $65,000 to rebuild this trail. Do you think it's a good idea?" More than 75% of the hikers who responded said NO and our supervisors almost cooked us over hot coals for asking.
Then the Trail Boss announced that he intended to use a road grader with an 11 foot blade and a five yard dump truck to haul rock and gravel as far as Landscape Arch, a mile up the trail. The trail winds and bends its way to the arch and I asked the trail guys, "How do you expect to run a grader and a dump truck on this trail without taking out all these trees and all this vegetation?"
They looked at me like I was nuts. "Of course, those trees and bushes get removed," the trail boss replied. "That's just the way it is."
Tempers flared. Their plan called for the creation of something equivalent to a Demilitarized Zone. Nothing alive would be allowed to survive on either side of the trail and the crew came within days of implementing their search and destroy mission. Finally Superintendent Pete Parry stepped in and proposed a compromise--if the ranger division would assist in the project and use its smaller S10 pickup trucks to transport gravel and rock, the project could be completed with minimal damage to the adjacent resource. It was the best anybody could come up with and the project moved forward. In the next six weeks, we ran more than 800 truckloads of materials up the Devils Garden trail and managed to keep most of the trailside vegetation intact.
But they still spent all that money. When the work was done, the Landscape Trail had a new six-inch layer of loose round gravel that acted like ball-bearings when hikers walked on it. On the day the $65,000 trail re-opened, a man from Denver slipped on the rocks and broke his ankle.
We all felt so proud. If you look at it today, you'll see that much of the gravel has eroded off the trail into the adjacent landscape and nearby gullies.
So it was like that. Other examples...
The park installed a new chlorinator at the campground and built a little 8 x 10 foot building to house the fifty gallon drum of chlorine and the pump. The tiny cinder block shed cost taxpayers $28,000. The same year I bought my house...an entire house...in Moab for ten grand less. The next day the new chlorinator malfunctioned and started sucking pure chlorine through the water system; thirsty hikers at the trailhead water fountain got more than a mouth full.
Roads and Trails spent $3000 on 495 pairs of gloves for its six division employees.
The park changed its garbage collection system five times in three years. It kept buying and discarding equipment faster than I could keep track.
Yeah...it was like that. I suspect it still is.
And that's why I have a difficult time finding much reason to support the new Fee Demonstration Program (discussed more thoroughly on page 18). Parks and recreation areas have always complained that revenues generated by user fees never stayed in the parks where they could do the most good. The Fee Demo plan supposedly changes all that. But it's the same old story: Priorities are always misplaced and pet projects of congressmen and superintendents get all the funding. A few years ago, a new housing area was built at the Needles District of Canyonlands N.P. Few, if any, of the employees who lived in the "old" housing had a problem with their accommodations. But, at a cost of millions (and a bunch of cost-overruns), the new fake adobe village was completed. Somewhere else in the Park system, NPS employees ARE living in sub-standard housing as a result.
No...I have a difficult time shedding a tear when I hear that the NPS is hurting for funds and that its infrastructure is collapsing. The NPS simply needs to learn how to make the best use of the money it receives. As far as I can tell, it's a lesson they still haven't learned.
And yet...
Despite all my perennial concerns about the government's lack of fiscal responsibility, I still take pride in having been a part of that agency. I have very little contact nowadays with those rangers in the field who do the real work of the National Park Service---the seasonal and "low-echelon" permanent employees who greet and meet and are seen by the public. I don't know if increased visitation and a heavier emphasis on law enforcement and a greater regimentation of their jobs has taken all the fun out of working for the Park Service.
But I did have some fun as a ranger and, more importantly, I felt like I was doing something worthwhile. Many of us who came to Arches and Canyonlands felt that way. We were the defenders of the grail. It was an opportunity to share something special with people who had often never seen anything quite like the landscape we worked for.
And that was often the difference between many employees--some of us were here for the Park and others were here for the Park Service--defending the Land versus defending the Agency. I could never hold much allegiance to the grey and green uniform but there was very little I wouldn't do for the park. Most NPS employees who put their hearts and souls into the place, then and now, receive little of the financial benefits that most citizens believe come with a government job (see Cort Felts' Seasons of Discontent in this issue.) But there were some satisfying moments out in the Arches that I will cherish forever and would not trade for a fool's fortune.
I think that a great many federal land agency employees still embrace the high ideals upon which those agencies were created, but are constantly frustrated by the layers and layers of bureaucracy that keep them from the work that needs to be done. Until there are utterly consumed by it. How that will ever be resolved is beyond me.
I mean...I worked for these guys. They couldn't organize a wildflower exhibit without forming a committee. And they'd sure have to call somebody a bit further up the Equivocation Ladder for a final decision. Do any of you Conspiracy Mongers really think our government people are that clever and diabolical?
Down in San Juan County, where many of its proudly isolated citizens look east to the San Juan Mountains on the horizon in Colorado and say, "Out there in America..," black UN helicopters are still spotted from time to time. It was explained to me once by a very neurotic friend that the numbers on the back of UDOT highway signs are actually directional codes for the Invaders, when they finally come.
All these theories are entertaining, I'll agree. But the reason for many of these ever-expanding rules & regs is too transparent to be sinister. To me it's a simple case of job security. It gives all those people something to do. A few years ago, I interviewed a BLM manager about a proposed new permit fee for photographing public lands. It was a dopey and unenforceable rule and I had a hard time taking her earnest defense of it seriously. Finally I said, "OK...Imagine I'm on Main Street and I take a photo. The cliffs in the background are BLM, but the foreground is private---would I have to pay HALF of the permit fee?" I expected a chuckle, but she was intrigued. "Very good question," she said sincerely. "I'll have to call Washington to get an opinion...very good question."
Now that scared me.
If our country is ever "overthrown," it will only be because we all threw up our hands in exasperation.
This morning's Salt Lake Tribune tells a grim story of intolerance. Last week a volunteer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was allegedly kicked and beaten while canvassing homes in Salt Lake City. A man in his 20s assaulted the 19 year old woman, yelling "dyke" and "queer" as she fell to the ground. Another man stood watch during the attack.
SUWA and a group of Sugar House residents have offered a $2000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the attackers. Police are investigating the beating as a potential hate crime.
The day before this issue went to press, I somehow managed to accidentally delete more than 1000 emails from my hard drive. Gone. Forever. One little mistake.
So if you've emailed me in the last two years and your email name begins with any letter that precedes 'p,' then your name and email have been wiped clean from my computer (with a few notable exceptions that made it to the Email Hall of Fame.). To a few of you who recently sent me letters to Feedback via email, most of them made it before the debacle, but please contact me anyway, especially Kent Alcorn.
And now if you'll excuse me while I go slash my wrists.