Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has directed the National Park Service to use every penny of its fee revenues, if necessary, to help keep national parks open during the partial government shutdown.

Bernhardt made that clear in a memorandum he sent Saturday to the Park Service's deputy director, P. Daniel Smith, who on Sunday told parks to begin using the fee money to pay for maintenance and custodial work and additional law enforcement personnel.

The use of the fee revenues for this purpose is questionable. Parks that charge entrance fees normally can retain 80 percent of those revenues for maintenance projects, visitor services, wildlife habitat needs, law enforcement, and recreation projects, while the remaining 20 percent goes back to Washington, D.C., to be distributed to parks that don't charge entrance fees.

Since the partial shutdown started just before Christmas, many national parks in the West have been overcome with garbage and human waste. Some have closed campgrounds and other areas in their parks, while Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks closed in their entirety.

In his memo, Bernhardt wrote that the entrance fee revenues should be tapped to address "restrooms and sanitation, trash collection, road maintenance, campground operations, law enforcement and emergency operations, and staffing entrance gates as necessary to provide critical safety operation."

Furthermore, he added that, "These operations shall be maintained until such funds have reached a zero balance."

The acting director based his decision to spend the revenues on the National Park Service Organic Act that "charges us with the dual mission of conserving park resources and providing for their enjoyment. At times there is tension between these two mandates."

Courts, however, have consistently ruled that the Park Service's prime mandate is to conserve resources for future generations, with public enjoyment secondary.

In his memorandum, Bernhardt also asked for a list of parks that do not charge entrance fees or have "insufficient balances" to cover these operatonal costs.

"Once I am provided the list, I will work the Deputy Director (sic) to direct the expenditure of fees to promptly address those challenges," he wrote. "By making these improvements, we better ensure our parks are protected for future generations, while still providing appropriate opportunities for the enjoyment of the American people today."

The contents of the memorandum were first reported by The Hill.

What is unknown is how the use of those fees during the ongoing partial government shutdown will impact the parks down the road, as those monies typically are used to enhance visitor services, not pay for basic services, and to address the maintenance backlog in the parks "for recreation facilities such as trail maintenance, toilet facilities, boat ramps, hunting blinds, and interpretive signs and programs."

Exactly how much fee money is held in the Park Service's accounts was not mentioned in the memo, though National Parks Conservation Association staff said Sunday that the agency was expected to collect $310 million last year. Whether there were millions of unspent revenues on top of that was not immediately known. As of Monday evening there had not been any directives telling parks to redirect money for projects already planned, the Traveler learned. 

While Park Service field personnel were wondering if the redirection of the funds was legal, attorneys for watchdog groups were looking into that very question, and some members of Congress were curious about the legality as well.

"Instead of working to reopen the federal government, the administration is robbing money collected from entrance fees to operate our national parks during this shutdown," NPCA President and CEO Theresa Pierno said Sunday. "It’s incredibly concerning that the Acting Interior Secretary is putting political pressure on Superintendents to keep parks open at the expense of parks’ long-term needs and protection. For those parks that don’t collect fees, they will now be in the position of competing for the same inadequate pot of money to protect their resources and visitors.

"Draining accounts dry is not the answer."