Dr. Michael Soukup, a former chief scientist for the National Park Service, argues that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is being irresponsible with his handling of the Park Service/Rebecca Latson file

National parks are a beautiful reflection of our country’s magnificent national and cultural heritage. Their protection is a high form of patriotism and worldwide source of inspiration. National parks also generate significant revenue for national, regional, and local economies. From all angles, national parks are a good deal for America.

Nevertheless, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum is eliminating, as “unnecessary overhead," the small cadre of central office resource specialists, including its chief scientist, who provide protection for all 400+ National Park System units. 

Why are Secretary Burgum’s actions irresponsible? National parks are dynamic, complex, fragile, and at risk. Their health requires careful, knowledgeable management.

For efficiency reasons, staff within national parks are primarily visitor services-focused generalists who depend on science support from specialists grouped in central offices. While most parks will have occasion to deal with highly technical issues, only a few need specialized expertise onsite on a full time basis. From coral reefs to Humpback whales, caves to night skies, parks must have access to those who can evaluate trends, and problems, and develop solutions consistent with park protection.

Why is this important? Because our national parks are constantly under siege. The resources that generations of Americans have protected for their enjoyment and inspiration are coveted by a wide range of vested interests.

Those wishing to develop, prospect, mine, hunt, trap, harvest, irrigate, and generally extract something from nature’s last refuges are persistent and powerful. Successful defense against piecemeal dismantling of our national parks has often depended on a science-based analysis of predictable impacts provided by central office scientists and resource managers.

Here are just a few examples:

• Analyses by air quality specialists prevented proposed sources of air pollution from filling up and obscuring the entirety of the Grand Canyon. Otherwise, by now families making a once-in-a-lifetime visit would not have been able to see into the canyon. As it stands Grand Canyon National Park continues to host millions of visitors annually, many from around the world. And they can still see the canyon’s unmatched grandeur.
• Similarly, protecting water rights in Western parks is absolutely critical, and no easy task. Water rights experts facilitate the acquisition of legal entitlement to, and the quantity needed, to sustain life in parks. For example, there will be enough water remaining in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park to maintain this dramatic park thanks to this water rights staff’s documentation that facilitated a victory in court over Interior Department political appointees anxious to give away federal water rights.
• Park geologists worked successfully with others to protect Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park from ill-advised adjacent geothermal development!
• Are visitors interested in seeing the condor fly again over the Grand Canyon, Pinnacles, or Zion? The peregrines flying and nesting in Acadia? Grizzlies or wolves taking down a bison in Yellowstone? Old Faithful erupting? Grand Canyon’s panorama? There are hundreds of examples of central office staff successes in keeping national parks intact, healthy, and interesting.

We accept that our enormous national budget deficit requires substantial reductions in federal government spending. Yet, targeting the public’s most beloved federal agency's ability to protect national parks seems far from compatible with concerns about
America’s greatness. There may be better yields from questionable subsidies that give away public resources at below market rates for water, timber, grazing fees, and oil, gas and mineral extraction.

National parks must have vigilant, uninterrupted care to reflect the nation’s stellar heritage over time. To date, no administration or secretary has been willing to have as their legacy the certain degradation of our entire National Park System. Secretary
Burgum must restore protection for our national parks. Failing that, all supporters of national parks in Congress must act.

Dr. Michael Soukup started his career as a marine ecologist and steadily moved up in the Park Service, serving as a researcher and regional office scientist before becoming the agency's chief scientist under former National Park Service Director Robert Stanton.