As the partial shutdown of the federal government moved past its third day, news tied to the National Park System didn't evaporate. A glance around the system shows hard times for lodging concessions, a particularly outspoken congressman, and questions about websites and oil production.
* Lodging Blues
As the government's idleness drags on, it's exacting a severe financial toll from the major park concessionaires. Xanterra Parks & Resorts, which operates in Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Zion, Crater Lake, Death Valley, and Rocky Mountain national parks, loses just about $1 million in revenues every day the parks remain closed. That number does not include the ongoing overhead in the form of utilities and employee wages.
The Old Faithful Inn is a relatively quiet place these days. Xanterra Parks & Resorts photo.
While Xanterra isn't able to guarantee work and pay for its employees, it is providing lodging and meals for up to three weeks, either free or at a nominal fee, depending on whether those employees are working during the shutdown. Salaried staff are receiving pay for three weeks.
While the Furnace Creek Resort Xanterra runs at Death Valley National Park is actually located on private property and not required to shut down, some guests with reservations are phoning in cancellations, which is understandable when you realize the surrounding park is technically closed to visitors. Xanterra also is seeing cancellations for its train that runs from Williams, Arizona, to the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and for its Grand Hotel in nearby Tusayan, Arizona.
ARAMARK Parks and Destinations, meanwhile, has an interesting situation at Olympic National Park, where it operates at Lake Crescent Lodge, Sol Duc Hot Springs, and Lake Quinault Lodge. While Lake Crescent and Sol Duc are inside the park, and so closed during the shutdown, Lake Quinault is just outside the park's southern boundary in the Olympic National Forest and remains open for business.
The lodge's occupancy has been hovering around 50 percent -- more on weekends, less on weekdays -- and is open year-round. You can check availability and make a reservation at this page. While you won't be able to enter the park unless the government gets back to work, there are lots of trails in the national forest to explore and enjoy.
* Apologize To The Ranger
U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, confronted a park ranger at the the World War II Memorial on the National Mall on Wednesday and got a bit outspoken in condemning the Park Service's handling of veterans wanting to visit the memorial.
Some visitors to the memorial took exception to the congressman's verbal tongue-lashing of the ranger, and complained that while the ranger was merely doing her job, Congress was failing at its.
The exchange between the Republican and the ranger, led to suggestions that people outraged by the congressman's behavior post "Apologize to the ranger" messages on his Facebook page.
* About Those Park Websites
It didn't take the National Park Service long to pull the plug on its park websites once the shutdown took effect. Some Internet surfers might wonder what the deal was, particularly when you consider 1) most of the content on park web pages is static, not posted daily, and 2) U.S. Forest Service websites were still operating.
Michael Litterest, a Park Service spokesman in Washington, said the decision to shutter the websites stemmed from the personnel needed to maintain them on a daily basis.
"All of the websites for the (Interior Department) bureaus are maintained in-house by our employees. Since all of those employees have been furloughed, there is no one to maintain NPS.gov, and with approximately 1 million hits per day, the site would crash without daily maintenance," he wrote in an email. "By contrast, some government agencies contract the maintenance of their sites and would be able to keep their sites live since the contractors wouldn't be affected by the shutdown.
"Of course, the sites were not taken down, per se; the pages still exists, we just added a service level redirect," he added. "The costs of that were negligible; essentially, it is the time that it takes to build a single page. That work was done by our Washington staff on Tuesday morning as part of the shutdown procedures before they went home."
* Oil Production From The Parks
Gas production rolls on in the park system despite the shutdown. NPS photo of well at Padre Island National Seashore.
There are a small number of park system units where oil and gas production is not only allowed, but in operation. Big Thicket National Preserve and Padre Island National Seashore are two such units.
While those park units closed with the shutdown, the production did not cease.
"Oil and gas production is operated under a right-of-way, which conveys the legal right to access the sites, regardless of the status of appropriations," explained the Park Service's Mr. Litterest.
Comments
ec, you really do need to take some remedial courses in reading comprehension. Are you unable to recognize exaggeration when you see or hear it? Exaggeration is not only in the words themselves, but in the way they are strung together and even the tone of voice used in expressing them. That's something we taught in fifth grade.
Maybe that's part of the problem right there. Some folks were daydreaming in class.
Lee,
Look at the case of Mt Vernon. Despite the fact that Mt Vernon on Oct 1st @10:30am was tweeting out that the estate was open and so were the parking lots, some online media was saying that the Obama administration had shut down a private enterprise. Some of them were still reporting a day later that the estate was blocked.
The Mt Vernon website even had this message on a page labeled "stillopen"
"Despite some reports to the contrary, our parking lots are open and available. We stand ready to welcome all visitors to the home of our founding father and first president."
http://www.mountvernon.org/stillopen
Thanks, Sara. That's exactly the kind of thing that we should all be watching for. A very, very important part of citizenship must be checking carefully to be certain something is truthful before repeating it. But that can be inconvenient -- and it might even prove to us that those we have chosen to hear are lying to us.
Unfortunately, too many among us are willing to blindly follow the lead of whoever is able to shout the loudest. And, unfortunately, the volume of their shouting is often in direct relation to the size of their bank accounts.
What would happen to those shouters if the majority of us took time to actually fact-check what they are saying? But too many will continue to choose to ignore facts and try to push for whatever delusional or deliberately dishonest agenda they have been sold.
Wow; ok; to be factual, I had read something about Pisgah Inn being blocked; however, being a former GM of a Blue Ridge Pkwy facility, I wanted to check the source; so I placed a long distance call to the Pisgah Inn to verify the information. Upon responding here, I used Pishgah Inns words - "Armed guards at the entrance to Pisgah Inn preventing the public from choosing to do business there?" - meaning NPS LE Rangers. They also stated that they were encouraging interested parties to share their concerns with their elected reps in Washington.
And yes, I do find this a bit unbelievable - and deplorable. As for 'hate radio', I would not waste my time listening to one second of that garbage.
For anyone wishing to view local (Asheville NC) media coverage of the Pisgah Inn forced closing, you can find information here, with video coverage:
Pisgah Inn reopens, defies government shutdown (Asheville Citizen-Times)
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20131005/NEWS/310050025/Pisgah-Inn-reopens-defies-government-shutdown
Pisgah Inn Forced to Close (WLOS TV)
http://www.wlos.com/shared/news/features/top-stories/stories/wlos_pisgah-inn-forced-close-13495.shtml
Sara : " Maybe, the Pisagh Inn closed maybe it didn't. "
Sara, the Pisgah Inn has never before received an order from the federal government forcing it to close because of a federal government shut down. Neither has the Pisgah Inn ever closed of its own accord due to a federal government shut down. I live here in the Asheville area. I am a native here. The inn was built in my lifetime and I visit the inn routinely as it is only minutes away. Obama's is the first and only administration in U.S. history to force this closure.
Apparently, the very same thing is happening with another non-federal entity which has no federal employees and receives no federal money and has never before since becoming totally self-sustaining been mandated by any presidential administration to close during a federal government shut down. But under Obama, the Claude Moore Farm in Virginia has also been barricaded/shut down by the feds. " “For the first time in 40 years, the National Park Service (NPS) has finally succeeded in closing the Farm down to the public. In previous budget dramas, the Farm has always been exempted since the NPS provides no staff or resources to operate the Farm.” See http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/02/shutdown-national-park-service-closes-self-sustaining-colonial-farm-it-hasnt-supported-since-1980/
BillH52 "Armed guards at the entrance to Pisgah Inn preventing the public from choosing to do business there? Are you kidding me? What country is this??!!!!"
Yes, unfortunately, the (furloughed?) Blue Ridge Parkway park rangers were required to barricade all entrances to this private business, park their Blue Ridge Parkway vehicles in front of the barricades with lights flashing, ensure all guests were removed from the inn and all diners removed from the restaurant, and prevent any other people who are freely driving the Parkway from freely doing business with this private entity and its approximately 100 private employees. What the Obama administration has done to this small business and its employees and their families is unconscionable.
mountainhiker, Congress controls the purse strings, not this administration, nor past ones, nor future ones. But you've made your point.