The other day on Traveler's Facebook page a reader took me to task for posting a story about Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's claim that roughly one-third of all Interior Department employees are against him and President Trump.
"The politicization of so many of your posts has become tiresome," he wrote.
As an editorially independent media outlet, I replied, we cover issues pertinent to the Park Service and the National Park System. As such, Secretary Zinke's claim was certainly pertinent to our coverage, in part because of the overall ramifications to the National Park System, and because we have a high readership of National Park Service employees.
Indeed, just about anything this Interior secretary -- or any Interior secretary -- does or says is pertinent to the management and future of the national parks.
Unfortunately, politics do seem to be appearing more and more in the news of the day. They were never absent, but after the presidential campaign -- not just its outcome, but the actual campaign -- the appearance, and interference, of politics shouldn't be surprising.
What should media do? Sit back and ignore the machinations of Washington when they have impact on the country?
The political and policy swing from Secretary Sally Jewell to Secretary Ryan Zinke has been broad and deep and can't be ignored.
Secretary Zinke placed a National Rifle Association official on the National Park Foundation's board of directors, is pushing federal land managers to issue more energy exploration permits more quickly, has called for a downsizing of some national monuments and the opening of others to resource extraction, and supports a significant reduction in both the Interior Department's budget and workforce. Interior also reversed course on previous rulings and took steps to approve a dangerous groundwater mining proposal that threatens Mojave National Preserve, the third-largest national park site in the lower 48 states.
While Secretary Jewell opposed a transmission line running through the James River near Historic Jamestowne and Colonial National Historical Park, Secretary Zinke wanted construction to begin as quickly as possible.
"That said," I continued in my Facebook reply, "we cover many other issues, such as the recent series on bison in the West, the strain of visitors on resources and park staff, the hurricane relief and recovery efforts, the comeback of eastern Hemlocks, photography columns, book reviews, as well as stories on how to enjoy the parks."
The reader came around to see my point of view.
"I jumped too quickly when I saw the post earlier today," he said. "Agreed, it is relevant, but in today's political climate due to this insane NFL issue (both sides are acting like children and fanning the flames), when I read the post about Zinke I thought, 'Oh no, not something else for people to blow up over!' I guess my thought was, yes, it's relevant, but couldn't we just let this one go? But, that would be wrong; it does impact the morale of the NPS employees, which in turn impacts the parks."
Employee morale also might take a hit from Secretary Zinke's travel decisions. Late last week, after news broke that Mr. Zinke charted a plane to fly from Las Vegas to Montana at a cost of $12,375, the Interior secretary referred to the flap as "a little BS over travel." Compared to Tom Price's fancy for government-paid-for flights, said to cost taxpayers north of $400,000, yes, $12,375 is miniscule.
But here's the kicker: Mr. Zinke didn't need to charter the flight. He did, though, rather than fly commercial for roughly $300 so he could stick around Las Vegas to speak at a private professional hockey team affair unrelated to his role overseeing the country's public lands and resources. The team is owned, according to the Center for Western Priorities, by Bill Foley, chairman of Fidelity National Financial, the largest contributor to Mr. Zinke's political career.
At a time when the Trump administration wants to cut the federal government's budget and remove roughly 1,200 Park Service staff, at a time when there's already not enough staff in the parks to protect resources or see that visitors have a great experience, the Interior secretary thinks spending more than $12,000 of taxpayer dollars so he can give a talk to benefit his largest political benefactor passes the smell test. It doesn't, and it isn't likely to help build the morale of Park Service employees.
No Data?
The Trump administration apparently has no response to the curious title page they attached to the water bottle report showing how successful a National Park Service ban on the sale of disposable water bottles in just 23 of the more than 400 units of the park system has been.
The report, obtained by The Washington Post via a Freedom of Information Act request, said the ban prevented upwards of 2 million 16-ounce bottles from entering the waste stream on an annual basis, cut between 73,624-111,743 pounds of PET from landfills, resulted in energy savings of 2,209-3,353 million British thermal units per year, and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 93-141 metric tons. It also claimed the data "is presented at a 95 percent confidence."
Last Monday we asked Park Service officials in Washington how there can be a 95 percent confidence level if “the bureau lacked the data necessary to ensure the report’s findings”?
While we were told on Monday that staff was working to answer that question, by Friday night they were unable to provide one.
Hurricane Recovery Funds
Here's a look at some of the funds that have been set up to help National Park Service personnel impacted by this year's hurricanes:
* The National Park Service Employees & Alumni Trust Fund performs disaster relief at the request of the National Park Service to support NPS and partner organization employees with immediate assistance for temporary shelter, food, damage to homes, and essential personal property. It is managed by Eastern National Park, a Park Service cooperating association.
"The National Park Service Employee & Alumni Trust Fund has collected $36,000 and received 65 requests for immediate assistance, mostly from NPS and partner organization employees in Florida and Texas," Eastern National President and CEO Kevin Kissling said Friday via email. "Communications with staff in the Caribbean remain sporadic, thus only a few requests have been submitted from employees in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. As infrastructure repairs progress, we anticipate additional requests will be submitted."
* Friends of Virgin Islands National Park has launched a recovery fund for the island of St. John, home to the national park.
On September 6, 2017 Hurricane Irma passed over St. John as a Category 5 hurricane. The results were devastating. Virgin Islands National Park, along with most of the homes and buildings on the island, were seriously damaged. The flora and the fauna of the island were decimated. It is not the St. John we know and love. We will recover, but it will be a long-haul.
Your support will be critical to the recovery process. Although nature is resilient, as humans we need to eliminate all barriers and obstacles in its way. On St. John, that now means a tremendous amount of clean-up, re-building and re-designing of our habitat. From clearing debris to rebuilding roads, trails and beach access ways.
Donations are being taken here.
* The South Florida National Park Trust is raising funds for Biscayne,Dry Tortugas, and Everglades national parks as well as Big Cypress National Preserve.
Although damage assessments are underway in each of the parks, we still don’t know where our help – and your support – is needed most. We will be working with our partner parks in coming weeks to identify the most urgent needs moving forward.
You can donate at this page.
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Comments
Thank you, Kurt. This article is very much needed. We are faced with what has to be the absolutely most dangerous presidential administration in the entire history of our nation. The ONLY protection we have now are reporters and investigators from various trustworthy media outlets.
And what do you consider trustworthy news outlets besides Kurt's Traveler, Lee? Never more is critical thinking needed to wade through the agenda swamp. Have seen a good bit of bemoaning problems within NPS. Maybe some of the attention and actions should be directed at the swamp within.
Great article, Kurt. It's incumbent upon such trusted resources as the Traveler to keep its readers informed about everything national park- and national monument-related. This includes fun stuff, educational stuff, and political stuff. Whether people like it or not, the national park system is as politicized as any other entity here in the United States, and the current administration's words and actions will affect our national parks and national monuments now and for years to come ... maybe not in a good way.
Being that our national parks are our, well, national, subject to political action for their continued funding and existence, it would be fairly difficult to avoid politics in examining some issues.
Certainly most of your readers are "biased" when it comes to national parks. That is, we care about them and what happens in and to them. Our opinions can differ in what we think is desirable, or how a goal can be achieved. As a former repoorter, I know that we all have biases. The trick is to know what they are and be able to cover a topic in a fair, balanced, thorough manner despite our personal ideas.
I've found the content here meets those standards. I think I can detect at least a little of your underlying political leanings, and this certainly isn't my only source of parks information. As long as you don't bear down too intensively on the Beltway stuff, I'm happy.
Besides, too much politics takes away from the time you have for intensive, in-person investigation of marmots in Rocky Mountain National Park, rock art in Escalante or whether autumn leaves are prettier in Michigan or New England!
The problem is that if the politcs don't get paid attention to, there might well not be marmots, rock art, or autumn leaves anywahere for Americans and others to enjoy in the future.
Agreed.
I was just trying to give Kurt an excuse for fleeing the office once in a while!
(This should be under Mike Painter's reply to my earlier post. Don't know why it's hanging out down here...)
Thanks for the heads up, Paul. Computers! Bah Humbug!
Try this. It should work better.
https://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/zinke-commandeered-boat-for-chan...
Thank goodness for PEER. We need this more than ever before.
Be sure to open and read the documents posted in green at the end of the first article especially the one dealing with Zinke's experts.
I also have a question someone may be able to answer. What is Bison Connect? It looks like some sort of internal DOI communication system.
Hey Lee, the link you provided only took me to my Gmail in-box. I could be doing something wrong but I couldn't get anything else from clicking the link, FYI.
Thanks, Paul.
Thanks for posting, Lee. This little episode should come as no surprise. Secretary Zinke recently described himself as a pirate; commandeering boats and ripping people off is what pirates do, eh?
Yeah. But let's hope that when he's finally caught he'll have to walk the plank.
For Lee and anyone else confused-Bision Connect is the internal NPS email system.
Thanks Ranger. That's what I figured.
Appreciate the thoughtful comments supporting Kurt's excellent response to a reader's question. Also want to thank that reader for submitting the question.
I don't expect each administration of always make the decisions I might agree with but believe dark days are ahead for DOI and America. Thanks to Kurt and the readers in this forum for providing intelligent dialogue.
Boy oh boy, that next employee morale survey is gonna be fun.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/1...
More trouble on the way for Secretary Zinke, who is already under 2 OIG investigations. A top whistleblower has resigned, vowing to fight for Zinke's removal. Story in the Washington Post.
Lee--
Bison Connect is the corporate suite version of Google gmail + google calendar + google docs + google drive + google sites, etc., branded for all of DOI. I find it much more functional than Outlook and Sharepoint for my needs; others may have different needs & experiences.
It's not to be confused with "bison", all lower case or all upper case, the USGS informatics "Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation", primarily speces occurrence observations.
I posted my thoughts about Zinke's trip to Santa Rosa Island on the Zinke CHIS post Kurt did, complete with links to photos. I'm not at all upset by the minimal cost of that day trip: about the same as what it would cost scientists or anyone else to get out there to see the islands for themselves. As the president said in a different context: it's an island, surrounded by lots of water. While the commerical Island Packers might have been easier, the NPS boat was going out on its regular trip anyway. I would guess that they adjusted the timing (possibly the day of the week), and maybe went a little faster, and apparently staged the boat from Ventura to Santa Barbara (the two mainland visitor centers for CHIS), but it wasn't an additional full pleasure cruise just for Zinke, and Zinke didn't "commandeer" the boat or trip. The email chain PEER has from the superintendent clearly indicates that park folks routinely taking that boat out to the islands for their work still were aboard.
Fran Mainella was before my time. The story I heard about her visit to National Park of American Samoa was that NPS staff had just discovered a new species of bat (new to the island if not new to science) and ran into her party on a trail near the visitor center, but she couldn't even fake interest for 10 minutes with the _very_ excited park scientists. Again, Zinke could easily learn and do better. Even as a hunter, he should be able to nod and be excited about seeing rare wildlife.
tomp2---
I look forward to your contributions and commentary here.
tomp2 - Thank you for your reasoned reply. It is beyond me how anyone would give credence to a PEER release after its blatantly bogus report on parks eliminating plastic.
With so many sources of information and "information" available via literally hundreds of electronic media outlets, one might think it would be easier to obtain current knowledge about the world around us. Instead, it is probably more difficult than ever to sort truth from fiction because some of those sources are either careless or deliberately falsify what they publish for one reason or other.
That's why it's vitally important that everyone who seriously cares about any issue that affects the welfare of all of us makes a sincere effort to verify anything they might find in any media. It's sometimes nearly impossible to differentiate between information and "information."
In my experience, sources like CNN and FOX deserve no consideration whatsoever, while others like PEER generally are reasonably accurate -- although the political nature of what they produce will almost always set off a politically partisan windstorm.
It's becoming harder and harder to try to make careful study of almost any subject. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be a reporter for any news outlet that sincerely tries to report accurately on almost any subject. Fact checking has become a necessary part of trying to understand virtually any issue today no matter the source.
Yet with all that said, it's even more important that we have organizations like PEER that at least make an attempt to keep us informed. Once an issue has been brought to public attention -- instead of swept under someone's rug or hidden in a congressional closet -- we will have at least an opportunity to examine what really or didn't happen. Can you imagine where the entire world would be if there were no reporters out there trying to keep an eye on trump?
Bob Scheiffer (spelling?), a very well respected journalist has a new book out that addresses that subject. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but our librarian pointed it out to me yesterday. Looks interesting and informative.
But, oh Boy! it's probably never been more difficult to try to remain well informed.
Meanwhile, here's an item from a news source I respect, the Salt Lake Tribune: http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/10/05/interior-chief-dismisses-criticism...
ec--
Sorry, I guess I'm beyond you then, because I fundamentally disagree with you about PEER. I sometimes disagree with PEER about interpretation and emphasis, but they both tend to get the core facts right, and usually provide copies of the documents to back up what they write. I find them worth reading and thinking about.
I don't know what "parks eliminatng plastic" issue you are referring to. PEER put out a press release April 5 2016 about bans on sales of disposable water bottles in 22 parks, with numbers for decreases in the parks' waste flows. Is that what you think made PEER unbeleivable? I haven't seen anything from PEER on the recent FOIA release of the NPS study on the effectiveness of the disposable bottle sales ban. I haven't bothered to check PEER's numbers from 18 months ago against those in the recently released NPS report. Are you claiming their numbers were wrong last year? Or are you referring to something else entirely as "blatently bogus"?
In this case, PEER provided copies of Zinke's itinerary, email chains with the Superintendent of CHIS discussing the boat trip and costs, and the Superintendent's after action message to park staff noting Zinke's idea of a working demonstration ranch. I disagree with "commandeered" as too strong of a word summarizing what happened, but clearly the boat trip was adjusted for Zinke's visit: he didn't just hop on the regularly scheduled trip. The documents show roughly $4K of additional costs for fuel & overtime just as PEER stated (I suspect from the email that the funding came from DOI or at least PWR, and didn't come out of the CHIS travel ceiling). $4K is $4K, and would cover a month or 2 of fieldwork in parks for someone like me, who too often has to work with parks remotely on stuff I've never seen. But I don't see $4K as excessive for a party of ~10 plus 2 senior NPS folks*. Management trips out of their offices cost money: management and accountability and oversight are all overhead, but often necessary overhead. [Science to inform management is overhead, too, in terms of not being direct management, but I certainly think it is valuable overhead to support management.] This is a case where I think the money might have been well spent, and the potential benefits were worth the investment. Bringing relatives along on the trip (albeit at no real additional cost) suggests he wasn't quite as hard-core about _learning_ as much as he could about the park and park issues as I would want. If he left CHIS still thinking that a demonstration of grazing & ranching was a great idea, I think he missed a core lesson of CHIS (not everywhere can sustain grazing). [Kate Faulkner would have given Zinke a polite earful explaining the effects of both ranching and introduced mammals on the islands, but she's retired from CHIS chief of natural resources now.] If this trip just lets Zinke see the impact of travel ceilings on park operations, so that if that issue percolates up to his level he'll be fine with keeping budget limits but freeing parks to spend as needed, that will be a huge improvement worth 100 times the $4K. PEER asserts that in the face of belt-tightening for parks and everything else, the belt should have been tightened on Zinke's trip to CHIS, too. I disagree, but PEER may be right, or it may be that PEER's publicity keeps Zinke's future travels from becoming another Fran Mainella fiasco.
* I know two of the NPS staff listed on the boat manifest. They're solid scientists, but not folks you would trot out as spokespeople or science communicators (sorry, guys, but I don't consider myself to be a good spokesmodel, either!). I'd bet they and at least 4 other NPS folks on the boat manifest were simply taking the boat out to do their work on the island for a few days. I'm not going to ask them about the trip, because I don't want to even appear to compromise them.
Yes, and while they said that is what had actually happened in reality those were estimates made prior to the bans being put in place with some extra padding and made up numbers.
"Yes, and while they said that is what had actually happened in reality those were estimates made prior to the bans being put in place with some extra padding and made up numbers. "
Opinion? Or fact?
Some documentation, please.
Fact - It has already been documented on this site in a previous discussion of plastic water bottles. Perhaps Kurt has a search feature that can help locate the thread.
This is part of that thread:
Submitted by SJ on May 24, 2017 - 9:45am.
What do you know about that document, which seems more like PEER's characterization, rather than what NPS actually said? https://www.peer.org/assets/docs/nps/4_5_16_Waste_Reductions_from_%20Bot..., you should look at what was actually in that report to Congress.
And more from that thread:
Submitted by SJ on May 30, 2017 - 11:10am.
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/upload/NPS-Response-to-Congressional-In...
reply
Submitted by SJ on May 30, 2017 - 1:58pm.
Last post is the link to the NPS report to Congress that ebuck asked for a link to. A read shows that it doesn't say what some (PEER and others) have claimed it does about actual reductions.
Submitted by ecbuck on May 30, 2017 - 2:15pm.
So Kurt, it looks like the NPS didn't lie to Congress, PEER lied to us.
Might be illuminating, but it is a dead link.
It must be a miserable life to have a passion to be anti-enfironmentally conscious. To continually bad-mouth people who are trying to help oithers. To heap scorn on people who care about polution in the wilderness. "Grampa - when I grow up I wanna be just as unhappy as you are."
I can't control what links the NPS keeps active nor the fact you apparently weren't paying attention the first time. Perhaps SJ can find the document again. Meanwhile, the fact that link ended the discussion at the time I believe is a strong indication that it made the point.
I don't know who you think is leading a miserable life. It isn't me. I am quite happy with a great wife, family, and friends. I live in a beautiful place, enjoy the outdoors, contribute to my community and care much about the environment, the wilderness and plight of man in a balanced manner.
OK here is what PEER claimed:
https://www.peer.org/assets/docs/nps/4_5_16_Waste_Reductions_from_%20Bot...
Here is what was actually reported to Congress:
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/upload/NPS-Response-to-Congressional-In...
The NPS report consisted of the analyses that were done prior to the ban. In all cases numbers were estimated and in most they were estimating plastic bottles of all varieties from all sources (not just NPS sales) None of the reports reflected actual reductions following the ban. Yet PEER took these numbers and claimed they were actual reductions.
After wading through the stuff contained in ec's link, I fail to see any significant contradictions. Looks like a bunch of . . . (what's the favorite phrase?) . . . . baseless accusations.
One of the big problems in something like this is that a waste stream comes from many sources. Eliminating sales of plastic bottles in parks cannot eliminate bottles as long a they are available in other places surrounding the parks. This whole thing was a great opportunity to try to educate thinking people and help them understand the harmful impacts of plastic in our environment. It's a tiny piece of what Dr. Runte urges as he calls for wise stewardship of our world. Maybe someday, we will become wise enough to begin reducing our impacts. But for now the Almighty Dollar has won -- again.
For whatever it may be worth, here's a link to some Congressional propaganda produced by the Congresscritter who is sponsoring a bill in support of a bottle ban:
https://quigley.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/quigley-introduces...
In it, he says, "Following the implementation of the original ban on plastic water bottles, parks that were able to join the effort saw real results. Zion National Park in Utah eliminated the sale of 60,000 water bottles, or 5,000 pounds of plastic waste, by installing bottle-filling stations and selling affordable reusable bottles in their concession stands. This is a prime example of how encouraging the use of reusable bottles and making them readily available can reduce waste and act as a model for best practices in sustainability."
But note that he makes no claim that the park's efforts eliminated bottles completely. But it did reduce them simply because they didn't enter the waste stream via the park. Just a few years ago, smoking was tolerated almost anywhere. But then we went to work and began to educate people about its terrible effects. Anyone older than 40 should remember days when every place we went was filled with smoke. We educated people and today we breathe much cleaner air. This can, (and should) be extended to other aspects of American life. Including trash production by marketers that have managed to convince too many of our neighbors that they need something they are making and hawking as they fill their pockets with cash. Much, if not most, of our behaviors as consumers have resulted from "education" handed to us in TV commercials. What could happen if we tried to counter that with education coming from another side?
Smart people learn to examine things like this and try to make responsible decisions for what they will and will not use. But before they may examine, they must be educated.
You must be blind. The NPS puts out estimates of total plastics before the ban and PEER falsly translates that into actual reductions after the ban.
Ooooo.
That does sound serious.
Like something Congress or donald might do.
However, PEER repeatedly uses the word "estimates." No one has rock solid numbers becuase there are so many variables that it's impossible to nail down anything exact.
But anyone who fails to see the bigger picture is blind, too.
And there is a much bigger picture out there.
No they don't. NPS submissions use the words estimates. PEER says "The following parks reported these percentages of reduction in their total waste stream and recycling load"
A blatent lie.
This is weird. Apparently Zinke likes using military style flags to denote whether or not he's in the building. And he's also commissioned commermerative medaliions with his name and title on them, although it's not clear who's paying for them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wheres-zinke-the-interior-secret...