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Pew Trusts: Repairing National Park System's Infrastructure Would Create More Than 110,000 Jobs

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By NPT Staff - December 17th, 2017

Consultant's report says more than 110,000 jobs would be created if Congress would provide the billions needed to address the maintenance backlog across the National Park System.

More than 16,000 jobs in California. Another 8,054 in Wyoming. And nearly 7,300 in Virginia. All told, if Congress provided the funds to tackle the National Park Service's $11.3 billion maintenance backlog, it would create more than 110,000 jobs across the country, according to an analysis.

No doubt, the job tally likely would go higher, as the calculations made by the Cadmus consulting firm for the Pew Charitable Trusts were based on the park system's fiscal 2016 needs, and not the additional ones created by Hurricanes Irma and Maria that battered the Caribbean and Florida park units.

"Of the 110,169 potential infrastructure-related NPS jobs, 64 percent would be direct and indirect jobs. Direct jobs are actual restoration and construction-related jobs, while indirect jobs refer to supplying materials to the construction site and other off-site support activities," the firm noted in its analysis. "The remaining 36 percent of potential jobs are induced due to money circulating within the local economy as a result of income generated from NPS infrastructure-related projects."

Infrastructure needs in the park system range the gamut, from road repairs (roughly half of the estimated $11.3 billion backlog) and trail reconstruction to building and sewage system needs.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has proposed to whittle away at that $11.3 billion estimate by instituting a "surge pricing" system that would more than double weekly entrance fees at 17 national parks across the country. Too, the Park Service this past week announced that it was reining in the number of entrance fee free days from 16 during the agency's centennial year to just four in 2018, in part to boost revenues to help address the backlog.

Along with addressing the maintenance backlog, an infusion of funds would help states with high unemployment.

"Of the NPS infrastructure-related jobs that would be created or supported by addressing the maintenance backlog, 59 percent would be in states with unemployment rates that exceed the national average unemployment rate," said the analysis, which based that conclusion on June 2017 Bureau of Labor Statistics information.

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