A career lawyer, Ed Keable, has been named superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park/DOI
Editor's note: This updates with additional comments from the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks.
A lawyer with three decades of experience with the federal government but none on the ground in the National Park System on Friday was named superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, a highly unusual move for a park that has struggled in recent years with sexual harassment issues and internal dissension and seen a revolving door of acting superintendents.
Edward Keable, who has worked for the Interior Department's Solicitor's Office for 23 years, is to move to the park within 60 days, a release from the National Park Service said.
National Parks Traveler has requested an interview with Keable, and Park Service staff was reaching out to see if he would grant it.
"What in the world qualifies him to be a superintendent?" Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, said after hearing the news. "In my experience, I have never known a person to be appointed to be a superintendent of a major park who didn't have significant National Park Service experience. Experience in smaller parks, experience in one of the disciplines found within a park, or something that gives them the special needed qualifications that a superintendent must have.
"This is extremely rare, and while I don't know this individual, on the face of it it seems improper," he added.
Later Friday, the Coalition issued a stronger statement opposing Keable's appointment.
“Ed Keable is not qualified to manage and lead a complicated park such as the Grand Canyon. While Mr. Keable may possess the ‘passion’ and ‘leadership skills’ that Acting Director Vela referenced in his statement, it does not mean that Mr. Keable has the knowledge, skills, and ability to be superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, one of the most high-profile, complex, and heavily visited national park operations in the System.
Individuals named to Senior Executive Service level positions have historically demonstrated significant skill in complex park management, earned through experience working in the field. Mr. Keable’s selection sets a terrible precedent and robs the National Park Service career workforce, who have decades of expertise working in national parks, of opportunities to lead the agency in senior superintendent posts.
In addition, Mr. Keable, who has worked closely with Secretary Bernhardt for years, will need to contend with efforts to develop a resort in Tusayan, just outside the gates of the park. Coming as no surprise to anyone following Secretary Barnhardt’s actions at the helm of Interior, Secretary Bernhardt’s former law firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, has been hired to lobby for its development. At this crucial time, when leadership is desperately needed, Grand Canyon needs an experienced and strong advocate, not a politically appointed superintendent.
On the heels of Secretary Bernhardt showing such disregard for NPS employees during the escalating pandemic by keeping parks open and putting their health and safety at risk, the decision to put someone with no national park experience in charge of a crown jewel of the National Park System is appalling.”
Former National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, who had worked with Keable during his career, didn't dismiss the appointment out of hand.
"I know Ed and worked with him at DOI. He is smart and capable and a career public servant with experience in the legal aspects of public lands," Jarvis said in an email. "It is an odd choice for the superintendent of Grand Canyon, but if Ed has a good operational deputy and a strong NPS management team in the park, he should do fine."
In taking on the challenging task, Keable will oversee the 1.2-million-acre park's 350 employees and operations that range from river operations and lodging, dining, and outfitting concessions to air tours.
Another extremely hot issue he'll have to confront are efforts to develop a major resort just outside the park on the South Rim. Opponents to the project being pushed by an Italian developer have said it could see more than 2,000 housing units and several million square feet of commercial space reach to within a half-mile or so of the park, and could impact groundwater flows that feed the canyon's springs and hanging gardens.
Keable steps into a job whose last full-time superintendent, Christine Lehnertz, was temporarily removed from her job in the fall of 2018 after undisclosed allegations were made against her. Lehnertz eventually was cleared of any wrongdoing, but she refused to return to Grand Canyon and the Park Service, saying what she experienced convinced her she could better impact people's lives elsewhere. She resigned from the Park Service in March 2019 shortly after she was cleared. Today she leads the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
Lehnertz had been handpicked by former National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis to move from the same job at Golden Gate National Recreation Area to the Grand Canyon in July 2016 to help the park overcome a long-running episode of sexual harassment.
The turmoil that swirled up around Lehnertz went back more than two decades. Reaching back to about 2000, life deep in the Inner Gorge of Grand Canyon at times reflected rowdy, sexually charged scenes from a frat party for some National Park Service employees, with male employees pawing and propositioning female workers, some of who at times exhibited their own risqué behavior. The behavior was largely ignored by park managers, including former Grand Canyon Superintendent David Uberuaga and even former Intermountain Regional Director Sue Masica.
But a group of 13 former and current Park Service employees in the early fall of 2014 wrote then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to complain and ask for an investigation. That investigation by the Office of Inspector General generated a tawdry list of inappropriate behavior, from male employees taking photographs up under a female co-worker's dress and groping female workers to women dancing provocatively and bringing a drinking straw "shaped like a penis and testicles" to river parties. The incidents, the letter to Secretary Jewell charged, "demonstrated evidence of 'discrimination, retaliation, and a sexually hostile work environment.'”
Since 2003, the OIG reported stated, there have been a dozen disciplinary cases taken in connection with employee behavior in the Grand Canyon's River District. The matter led Uberuaga to retire rather than take an assignment in Washington, D.C.
Keable is well familiar with the sexual harassment issue in the park. Part of his role in the Solicitor's Office was working with the Office of Inspector General on its investigations, and providing legal advice regarding those investigations.
During a May 2016 hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that was "Investigating the Culture of Corruption at the Department of Interior," the attorney testified that, in his opinion, the Park Service was working to address the problem.
"I believe what they have done is they have looked at the IG report of the Grand Canyon and they are assessing how to address procedural issues to ensure that those kinds of situations do not repeat," testified Keable.
He also told the subcommmittee that, "I think the Park Service is taking very seriously the information in the IG report on the Grand Canyon and are very seriously addressing the issues highlighted by that report."
The allegations made against Lehnertz in 2018 that eventually led to her departure from the Park Service claimed she fostered a hostile atmosphere among the park staff and spent recklessly on renovations to employee housing. In the end, Interior's Office of Inspector General cleared her of all allegations, and in its report created a portrait of one of her accusers as determined not to follow her directives and even impede them.
Regarding air tours, the Grand Canyon staff long has struggled to manage them. The problem seemingly was heading towards resolution in 2011 when the Park Service released a draft environmental impact statement that claimed a proposed air tour plan would boost the level of "natural quiet" in the park -- quiet that allows you to hear the murmuring of creeks, the roar of rapids on the Colorado River, the melodies of canyon wrens. But congressional efforts blocked the plan from taking effect, according to the park.
While Keable's lack of on-the-ground experience in the park system has alarmed some Park Service veterans, David Vela, the de facto director of the agency, said the lawyer "brings excellent leadership skills and passion for our nation’s public lands to his new role."
“His experience at the Department of the Interior also provides a broader perspective that will be an enormous benefit to the park, employees, and visitors," Vela added in the Park Service release without elaborating.
Keable said in the Park Service release that he was "greatly honored that Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Deputy Director Vela have entrusted me to work alongside the dedicated employees at the Grand Canyon National Park to conserve this natural wonder for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of the American people and the whole world.”
The lawyer, who gained his law degree from the Vermont Law School, has served as the assistant solicitor of General Law for the Office of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior since March 2012. He has worked for the solicitor's office 23 years, according to the NPS release.
Comments
No, AEI/PERC Alfred, I'm really not overly interested in complaining about Mr. Keable's experience; but, many knowledgeable stakeholders in the NPS and the DOI are definitely very concerned about his apparent lack of direct field experience in modern national park management. I'm certainly careful to listen to their views, to respectfully note their viewpoints in my comments, and, by doing so, to elicit feedback as a means of ensuring I don't miss any major elements of the issue.
You pompously and condescendingly brush aside the "little people" and order them to to just go away and "do some reading for a change." That comment seemed, at least to me, to be quite an illbred thing for anyone to come out and say. However, if you, yourself, had taken the time to carefully read my comments, you would have seen that I'm actually focused on 1) Mr. Keable's background and record, 2) his connections, 3) how those factors relate to ongoing events in northern Arizona, 4) what it all might mean as far as reasons for his unusual selection, and, perhaps most revealing of all, 5) why so many of the usual suspects seemed suddenly so eager to preemptively attack my line of inquiry, shut down my efforts to fully understand what's happening here, and undermine my efforts to gain more information, especially more specific information on why this man, this park, at this time. But, perhaps you already know what I'm focused on because, although I've actually been quiet on this topic for quite a while, you and your unsavory packmates have just flat been soiling your clothes in your efforts to keep coming after me and to preemptively discredit my questions. What are you trying to hide here?
Just for the record, because all of this is going to be part of the record, let's go back and look at what I've been trying to establish through my previous comments. I noted that Mr. Keable worked for the Office of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior for 23 years, served as assistant solicitor for General Law in that office since March of 2012, and how, on his watch, David Bernhardt issued an order in August of 2019, directing the NPS to expand eBike access in NPS units. In December of 2019, more than three months later and still on Mr. Keable's watch, a suit was filed charging that the process by which this order was issued violated the Administrative Procedures Act and NEPA, which it certainly seems to have done. Last Thursday, April 2, 2020, more than seven months after Bernhardt issued his original order and while still on Mr. Keable's watch, the NPS revealed more than 380 national parks had begun evaluating eBike use, after the policy had already been issued and implemented, and that they would now begin to define what was covered by that more than seven month old order. At the same time, the NPS declared that they were now "seeking public input" on the same seven month old order. Now, you may not care about eBike access in NPS units anymore than I do and you may dismiss this issue with a nihilistic handwave; but, the NPT article on the topic stated that these actions, in the chronological order in which they occurred, appear in conflict with the Code of Federal Regulations. That statement was incorrect. The actions do not appear in conflict with the Code of Federal Regulations; they are in conflict with the Code of Federal Regulations; and, although I do not draw a conclusion about Mr. Keable's personal involvement, Mr. Keable needs to be asked about his involvement because it would raise important questions, not about Mr. Keable's experience, but about his background, record, and his view of the law, all of which are pertinent to any discussion of his selection as a park superintendent.
Next, it would be both pertinent and helpful to know whether Mr. Keable, as the assistant solicitor for General Law in the Office of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior had any knowledge of or involvement with the scheme being pushed by the Italians, Stilo, and the interests around Tusayan to gain water usage and other infrastructure to support "more than 2,000 housing units and several million square feet of commercial space ...within a half-mile or so of the park." At about the same time that Bernhardt's former law firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, was lobbying on behalf of that development scheme and at exactly the same time that the legal processes around that scheme were going to be heating up, Trump's first Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke presided over the temporary removal and ultimate resignation of the Grand Canyon's previous superintendent who Zinke's sidekick and successor, Bernhardt, is now trying to replace, not with someone in line because of their long service in modern national park management, but with his own handpicked staff attorney in what knowledgeable stakeholders in the NPS contend is an extremely unusual selection. Again, these events raise questions, not about Mr. Keable's experience, but about his connections, about how they relate to ongoing events in northern Arizona, and about how they might relate to the reasons for his allegedly unusual selection. We don't need your personal reassurances on the matter; you're not trustworthy in that regard; we need the questions formally asked and answered, perhaps under oath.
Again, why are you trying so hard to derail this line of questioning? Why are you suddenly so eager to preemptively attack my line of inquiry, shut down my efforts to fully understand what's happening here, and undermine my requests for more specific information? An earlier comment expressed my focus well, "I would still like more concrete information; I still find the connection between Stilo and Bernhardt's old law firm to be both odious and too convenient to be just coincidence; and the other excuses still sound like the usual whitewashing." So, stop trying to duck and weave, whitewash, divert, and distract. Given the tainted mix of development schemes and connections with high-priced lobbying operations we have here, I want specific, concrete, reasons why this man, this park, at this time and you should want them too.
Rump, you keep missing the point. I am not disagreeing with any of your findings or concerns. I am merely asking why you and others seem so surprised that your National Park Service marches to political drummers, and why, in the larger scheme of things, few advance in the agency without agreeing to do so. Years ago, when I was a consultant to the Grand Canyon Railway, I learned full well how Arizona "works." Every politician in the state listens to developers, and, at the time, John McCain and Bruce Babbitt were no different. As for my development, the Grand Canyon Railway, it would have disappeared had the Highway Lobby gotten its way. Railroads? Public transportation? God forbid we have that in the Grand Canyon State! Now it's the Italians, is it? Well, it's always somebody. And your National Park Service plays right along, as does the National Park Foundation and other "friends" groups that rely on corporate donations for their payrolls.
What does it take to turn an environmentalist into a developer? A development the environmentalist likes. Call me a developer; I like railroads. Unfortunately, John McCain listened to the Bus Lobby, you know, those people running visitors into South Rim from Las Vegas and Phoenix for an hour or so in the park(ing) lot. Fifty years ago, Stewart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior, wanted Grand Canyon dammed--and ordered the National Park Service to shut up about it. If it hadn't been for David Brower and the Sierra Club, two reservoirs would fill the canyon today.
Where has the Park "Service" been in all of this? Serving its masters to stay afloat. Sure, it's a fine agency, but hardly a perfect agency. When you take the King's shilling, you serve the King.
Who is King? The economy. And always has been. If I were you, I wouldn't worry so much about the Italians as I would about everyone who lives next door. The so-called Gateway Communuities are the bigger problem here; the drumbeat from them is endless. More visitors! More spending! It's time we all got PAID!
Occasionally, if a park superintendent is patient, he or she gets to "restore" a corner of the park. That's what we wanted to with light rail at Grand Canyon--get the asphalt out entirely. Senator McCain cut us off at the knees--and under the Clinton Administration, just for the record. We can't have light rail in the national parks! After all, they were meant for asphalt--and the wider the road the better to get all of the buses through.
You want a conspiracy, Rump? There is your conspiracy. Don't look for it in the Interior Department. It is rather to be found on Capitol Hill.
Having known concessionaires who wanted me fired while telling the truth in Park Service uniform--and a university that protected a file tamperer just because the crook was tenured--I don't need anyone lecturing me about what goes on "behind the scenes. " All rats live behind the scenes. Will Mr. Keable do the bidding of the rats? You bet he will if that's who picked him. The point is: No one gets into those positions period without agreeing to live with rats. As for not becoming a rat yourself, that takes a ton of discipline.
I vowed never to be a rat. And what do I get from you, Rump? The insinuation that I was never an effective scholar because the University of Washington denied me tenure. No, my problem was that I was a scholar--and it took file tampering to make your case.
Make it. The truth is on the record for anyone who cares to find it. Just as the truth will come out about Mr. Keable without your help or mine. The minute he opens his mouth, we will know which "side" he is on. I just don't expect him to be on the side of preservation. Now that would be a first.
Just to be clear, President Clinton visited Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Great Falls Park, and Grant Teton. President Obama visited Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Acadia. Each of them spent the night in one or more of these parks.
CJDillon, at the beginning of the same paragraph to which you just responded, whiny "nobody liked me or did it like I said, so everything is too corrupt to be worth any effort to do anything; nothing matters anyway; and I don't want to play anymore, except maybe to make sure I tell you that you're all too foolish and far beneath me to understand what I know by rote" Alfred asked and answered, "Sure, we lost Bears Ears and Escalante, but why didn't Clinton and Obama give them to the National Park Service in the first place? I'll tell you why; because it was all for show."
I believe you might be the very person to explain 1) what threats these areas faced and why these threats, rather than purely just a desire to make a "show" of it, might have prompted Clinton and Obama to protect these areas at the times they took those steps, 2) the differences between the processes for designation of a national park as opposed to a national monument, 3) what Clinton and Obama, respectively, faced in the House and Senate, in terms of which party controlled which body, at the times they felt compelled to protect these areas, 4) how the positions of the two political parties differed and still differ on the protection of these and other areas, 5) why, under the circumstances they faced, Clinton and Obama both felt they had to resort to the Antiquities Act to protect these areas given the apparent urgency of the threats, 6) why Clinton and Obama, given the politics of the times, didn't just give these areas to the National Park Service in the first place, and 7) what has happened, in terms of the environmental and conservation threats, planning and management trends, and on the ground changes, to the portions of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments that have had protections removed or revised by the Trump Administration and the GOP and how do those changes either validate or refute either Clinton's or Obama's concerns about the need to protect the areas?
I get exhausted debating deaf opponents; but, perhaps since this is your area of expertise, you might be able to get it out there on behalf of all of us who are too foolish and far beneath Alfred to understand what he knows by rote.
And just to be clearer, Mr. Dillion, you perfectly prove my point. Are these the records of presidents in love with the national parks--four "parks" for Mr. Clinton and three for Mr. Obama?--and that, for each president, over a period of EIGHT years? No matter, each of them, you further offer, "spent the night in one or more of these parks." Which "one?" Indeed, are you sure it is even one? There are only three or four to begin with!
Stunning records, to be sure. And Mr. Trump is compiling one exactly the equivalent. Let's not get carried away "roughing it" off the golf course.
My point, which history continues to make, is that the truth is unkind to all politicians. You were a National Park superintendent, I see. Tell me I am wrong about the politicial pressures you faced. Indiana Dunes, when I spoke and visited there in the 1980s, was still having growing pains, as I recall.
We're lucky, when all is said and done, that we have the parks we have. Just don't go looking for heroes in politics. Every great park--especially the biological ones--emerged after a knockdown fight. And then there was the superintendent of Olympic National Park, Fred Overly, who actually logged the park for nearly a decade, until a small band of interpretive rangers (two of them later distinguished university professors and another with the Peace Corps) blew the whistle on Overly and got him "promoted" out of Olympic--next to become superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Talk about the fox in the henhouse.
Why are we so worried about Mr. Keable? Nothing is new; nothing has changed. We simply prefer our "selective outrage." We get outraged when "their side" does it; when our side does it we find excuses. Even my good friend, the late Michael Frome, happened to "like" Fred Overly, So he cut a few trees (150 million board feet at least). Well, maybe he had his "reasons," an observation that infuriated one of the original whistleblowers, also a good friend of mine (Carsten Lien, OLYMPIC BATTLEGROUND, Mountaineers Books).
When you live among historians and writers--in these cases, many of them former park interpreters--these are the "stories" you hear. And then, immersing yourself in the records, you find they are not "stories," after all. Certainly, some have inspired my own books, especially YOSEMITE: THE EMBATTLED WILDERNESS. Everything biological in Yosemite was an upfill fight. It's the nature of the political territory.
We will never get politics out of our national parks, but yes, I wish we would get a few more of our politicians into them. These one-night stands might be good for "image-building," but the parks deserve so much more.
Really, Rump. You slay me. Now we have "seven reasons" why Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama perhaps established Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears the way they did. No, let's stick to the one. It was all for political show. How do I know that? Because they left them with BLM. There was no reason in the world they needed to do that. If they had meant these monuments to last, they would have given them to the Park Service in the first place and let the environmental community defend their gift.
That, Rump, is how parks are made. Someone on the ground needs to take ownership and see that the park survives. Who wants to take "ownership" of anything controlled by BLM? Or the Forest Service, for that matter? The philosophies of both have always undercut the parks. You are dead with those agencies before you start. Sure, they talk a good game, but when push comes to shove, the "game" always gets back to development.
You mean Mr. Clinton didn't know that--or his advisors? Or Mr. Obama and his advisors? As i said, you slay me. How ignorant do you think THE TRAVELER'S readers are? Even Wikipedia reports that Grand Staircase emerged during the height of Mr. Clinton's second campaign for president (September 18, 1996). Now just why would Wikipedia take note of that?
Just for the record, along about 1980, when Mount Saint Helens blew its top, the Forest Service insisted on getting that "national monument"--that for the first time, since 1933, when FDR had placed all of the national monuments under the Park Service. It worked because, just then in Alaska, Congress had bent to the wishes of Native Americans and extractive interests in establishing national parks and PRESERVES. From then on, the Park Service's competitive agencies got smart and started demanding they manage "their" national monuments, in other words, any carved from "their" lands.
When a president is serious, he acts like FDR. He puts the monument straight into Park Service hands. I believe only three or four of the fifteen or twenty latest monuments meet that criterion. I, too, would have to check. But I do not have to check the "facts" behind the politicizing of the entire process. If you want a "weak" monument, you start it weak. And the land managing agencies want them weak.
Imagine if Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama (drum roll, please) had put the Park Service in charge from the start. You mean to say Mr. Trump would have dared abolishing them? Absolutely not! You don't abolish things run by the Park Service and get your political teeth kicked in. Why do that? Utah will still vote for him anyway. But yes, if Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton have left you low-hanging fruit, why not? It's not the Park Service; it's BLM. These are not even national parks "in waiting," as my late colleague, Hal Rothman, used to put it. They're just aa name change--a convenient photo op. Politicians live for those.
But wring their hands over them? Bah, humbug! No heavy thinking needed. Throw the puppy a bone and make him think there is meat on it. I wish there were "seven steps" to that, but there aren't.
One minute, Rump, you're finding conspiracies all over the Interior Department, and the next you're denying there are any "conspirators" among your list of favorites. When Clinton and Obama made decisions, they "agonized" over them. When Trump makes a decision, he is a jerk. Well, they're all jerks--and statesmen. It all depends on what's at stake. That's American politics. You should be used to it by now. "It's a republic, Madam, if you can keep it." (Benjamin Franklin) And so far we've at least held on.
I was not a NPS superintendent. Mr. Runte, I beleive I know you and your great work from when I worked at Glacier National Park as an east side district interpreter and was familiar with your adminstrative history work. Costa, I know and respect from work, I have been in classes with Costa, viewed his work up close and personal and back in the day when he treated mosquitos at fire island....was hanging on every natural resource move (in a fgood way). I write this because I am an older gal (62) I did go to Northern Arizona University and thr true honor and privilage to have Dr. Larry Agenbroad (WACO pleistocene work) and Dr. Dale Nations (author of Geology of Arizona) on my my thesis committe along with paleobotanist Dr. Rishrd Hevly and Jim Meade. We studied landscape change in Northern Arizona in the 1980's and beyond. We studied each aspect of Central Arizona Projecy (CAP) in my hydrology course with Dr. Agenbroad, the sedimintation rate of Lake Mead. Why do I write this? Because everything Dr. Agenbroad said is TRUE. We need a visionary leadet for Grand Canyon who is STEEPED in natural resources and MANAGING people. Do not tell me he is familiar with the horrible treatment of qulified women who come forward in the NPS to speak the truth. I AM FAMILIAR with qualified women who have the nerve and audacity to come forward and tell truth to power. Please, for all who have any say in this matter I say fight it with every breath that you have in your body. Future generations will thank you.
Dear Lynne. Thank you for writing and commenting. You bet. We need great leadership in our national parks, and too often don't get it because of the politics, about which I ask that you make no mistake. I'm on your side all the way. In explaining the politics I am simply reminding readers how we get what we get. Too often these past three years, we have been told that Donald Trump is "the problem." However, the problem, as history explains, was simmering long before he arrived--and went UNSOLVED long before he arrived.
Fortunately, Grand Canyon is a flagship park--with lots of stakeholders and millions of friends. It has what Grand Staircase and Bears Ears lacked--fame. And it is managed by the National Park Service, which has standards America has come to expect. If attacked, and however attacked, Grand Canyon will be on the evening news every night, as it was in the 1960s when Stewart Udall wanted it dammed--and the Sierra Club took him on. If Mr. Keable needs a lesson in history, all of us will be sure to give it to him, which reminds me. Thank you for your comments about my work. It sometimes does get lonely "talking truth to power," as you say, but that is the only kind of history worth reading.