Joshua Tree National Park will close Thursday for cleanup operations/Kurt Repanshek file
Editor's note: This updates the caption of the downed Joshua tree to reflect that park officials later concluded the tree had been cut down prior to the government shutdown.
Illegal roads, cut down Joshua trees, and damaged federal property, along with the need to clean up garbage, prompted Joshua Tree National Park Superintendent David Smith to announce Tuesday that the park would close indefinitely on Thursday to address those impacts incurred during the ongoing partial government shutdown.
“The park will be closed until I can ensure that resources inside the park are protected," Smith said during a short phone call. "We’re hoping that the shutdown will be over soon."
While the closure will take effect 8 a.m. Thursday, the superintendent could not say how long it would last. Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has directed the National Park Service to use fee revenues brought in under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act to pay for cleanup and additional law enforcement personnel. Smith said that while his park normally takes in about $9 million a year, most of that has been committed to projects. Staff was working to see how much in unobligated funds remained.
On February 1, just over three weeks after this story broke, Joshua Tree officials said the tree had been cut down prior to the partial government shutdown/NPS
Joshua Tree is a geologic showcase that is a climber's gymnasium, one that offers two different desert settings. Straddling the geographic divide that splits the Mojave Desert from an element of the Sonoran Desert, the park located about two hours east of Los Angeles in Southern California is both a day tripper's paradise and an adventurer's escape. The cooler winter months are the busiest in the park, which has made the task of preventing damage with a handful of rangers during the ongoing shutdown extremely difficult.
Last week park staff closed its campgrounds to overnight use because of sanitation problems, but many visitors ignored that closure. With just eight law enforcement rangers working during the partial government shutdown it was impossible to cover all areas of the park, which is about the size of Delaware.
"There are about a dozen instances of extensive vehicle traffic off roads and in some cases into wilderness," Smith replied when asked about the damage in the park. "We have two new roads that were created inside the park. We had destruction of government property with the cutting of chains and locks for people to access campgrounds. We’ve never seen this level of out-of-bounds camping. Every day use area was occupied every evening.
"Joshua trees were actually cut down in order to make new roads.”
Since the National Park Service was told to keep as many units of the National Park System open as possible during the partial government shutdown, but only with essential personnel, many have struggled with skeleton contingents of law enforcement rangers. With no maintenance crews to collect trash or maintain restrooms, and no budget to pay for outside help, many parks have been blighted by litter and human waste. There have been reports of illegal off-road travel, metal detecting on battlefields in the park system, and damage to resources.
Following Bernhardt's directive to use fee revenues, park staff across the country was busy seeing how much was available.
The new roads at Joshua Tree didn't run for miles, but rather jogged around gates to gain access in many cases, according to the superintendent.
“It’s short spurts for people to get around gates for the most part. They would just go out into the country, and then once 20 or 30 cars would go over it you would essentially have a new road created in pristine desert,” he said.
Illegal campsite in Joshua Tree National Park/NPS
One place that saw traffic was around Joshua Tree's Live Oak area, which is not far from the north entrance to the park.
“We had some pretty extensive four-wheel driving around the entire area to access probably our most significant tree in the park," Smith said. "We have this hybrid live oak tree that is deciduous. It is one of our kind of iconic trees inside the park. People were driving to it and camping under it. Through the virgin desert to get to this location. That would probably be a quarter-mile or so around the rock formation that is there.”
The superintendent said there also were instances of graffiti in the park this past week. Park officials were identifying additional staff and resources needed to address immediate maintenance and sanitation issues.
Monitoring a park the size of Joshua Tree, which covers 1,235 square miles and has about 20 different entrances due to dirt roads that ring the park, is extremely difficult with just eight law enforcement rangers. Were it not for the shutdown, there would have been more than 100 other "sets of eyes" to help keep an eye on visitor behavior, the superintendent said.
"We have 120 employees in the park, plus 30 associates that work for Great Basin Institute, the majority of whom are in the park every day," he said. "Those are the folks that are in the campgrounds and in the day-use areas and doing science. So you’ve got 100 sets of eyes in the park every day with folks contacting visitors."
Law enforcement rangers were to continue to patrol the park and enforce the closure until park staff completes the necessary cleanup and park protection measures.
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Comments
Most true comment ever!
I have been to Joshua Tree many times. Jumbo Rocks is one of my favorite places. Stupid is what stupid does and your comment is just that. I agree we need to protect our natural resourses including national parks, minerals, open land and an economy for our citizens. I California alone the Government (A state system of parasites that are from the Liberal sector) funded $53 BILLION dollars to fund ILLEGAL ALIENS. Compared to the price of a border wall is HUGE. Texas was second at $11 Billion with greater three times the border length. This is not a forum for politicing but you open pandoras box. To the desecrators they need to be dragged throught he monument.
Sad situation! Spoil what has been set aside for their and their children's children's enjoyment just because they can! Take what you can and don't worry about others! No! Stupidity is what he feeds on! We must work for bettering the world! Line our pockets by making smart choices that don't scar the Earth! Fight stupidity!
Unfair and uncalled for comment in my opinion--what does Trump have to do with this? We all love the parks...why can't we keep our political opinions to ourselves??
Yeah, because no one ever cut down a tree in a NP until Trump became President.
Maybe you didn’t read the entire story properly. It was more than just “a tree” large parts of this national park were trashed. It’s amazing what Americans will do to their own country while pointing the finger at other folks
thank you
1 dead tree as photographic evidence hardly convinces me of widespread vandalism. #fakenews
Granted, people are animals and if too much time passes it will look like Mad Max after one off-road season. However, the area is very rocky.
wow an article has one photo that's not a file photo and you assume it's the totality of evidence. That's kinda amazing. I suppose nearly all news is fake news then if an article *gasp* doesn't have photos
The only people who call this "fake news" are vandals themselves.
Because you can't see each and every instance of damage, you conclude that it's fake news?? Do you not believe the park employee who was interviewed in the article??
This comment was edited to remove gratuitous language. -- Ed.
Animals DONT DESTROY THEIR HABITAT.....only humans...so dont denigrate the good name of Animals
read up on the area and you’ll learn how many years it will take for regrowth of anything they run over.
That's Joshua Tree National Park.. It was left there.. the tree wasn't dead.. its pointless vandalism.
It was more than one dead tree. These are protected trees. Just like you protect your home. We protect our parks for their beauty, uniqueness when we travel to them with our kids they are awestruck learning geology, biology, & horticulture. They offer our children, grandchildren, and future life a place to learn & love our country.
One tree is all we need then what two trees and then your town and then the city and u would be like well its just that city. They were hillary supporters anyway. #fool
So what you demand is a picture of every bad act? hash tag fake news tells me much more about you than does your choice of treehugger for your name.
I agree with you. FAKE NEWS. Did anyone else notice there are no footprints around the trunk? Where are the chopping chips or saw dust? The leaves are dead. That tree was at the end of its life and probably fell over on its own.
i don’t see any evidence of being “cut“. It wasn’t a chainsaw because it’s so ragged and no chips on the ground or axe marks on the trunk. Looks like it blew over and fell like dead trees eventually will do.
I cannot believe the callousness of that statement. Apparently if a puppy pees on the floor, your nose must be rubbed in it before you "believe".
its not just a dead tree, there are other things going on. fake news? You must be a trumpet
The National Park Service release says that it's multiple trees that have been vandalized. I'm sure it's not the first time, but I doubt it's a coincidence that it's happening at this period.
Yet they only show one picture of a tree that very clearly was not cut. If it was, what the hell did they use? Not a saw or Axe. Steak knife maybe. More manufactured anger from the left. One dead tree falls “vandals cut down trees”. Only a dilutional person would believe this.
Vandalism has been common throughout the parks for decades. You have absolutely no evidence that this is anything other than a random, common event totally unrelated to the shut down. But if you don't like the shut down. Get your Democrats to fund the government.
Democrats passed the bill the that Senate passed 100-0. The one that Mitchell is blocking from coming to the floor. You do know that "the wall" was supposed to be nothing more than a memory trick for immigration?
https://theweek.com/speedreads/816042/trumps-wall-fixation-reportedly-be...
The shutdown happened while the GOP had Congress. Why didn't they pass it Sparky?
Because they didn't have 60 in the Senate.
There were no employees there to monitor visitors because of the shut down. The fact that you people ignore what's right in front of your faces, just to defend this president, is ridiculous and embarrassing. What are schools teaching people these days???
why don't we get the chief cheeto to pay for it since it's his stupid idea to begin with.I don't see any beaners south of the border paying as he promised they would!
Wondered when the first idiot is I blame politics for peoples actions would be here. Just happens to be Pro R And yes I would say same thing with a Pro Dem too
To think this would normally occur with a fully staffed park, it’s just niave. democrats and republicans have funded the government, it’s the president who’s throwing a temper tantrum because he isn’t getting his way. you can’t just shut down a government because someone isn’t getting their way, that’s not how democracy works. that would be an oligarchy
It is not the Democrats who are refusing to fund the government. It is the lead Senate Republican who is refusing to send bills to reopen the government to the Senate floor because the Republican President "won't sign it anyway".
@ecbuck. I don't like the government shutdown and I did get my Democrats to fund the Park Service. It was passed by the House of Representatives this last week. Regretfully your best boy, Senator McConnell, refused to allow it to come to a vote in the Senate where I am sure both my Democrats and your Republicans would have passed it. How does it feel to be enviromentally raped by your Senator from Kentucky?
It's extremely rare to have this level of vandalism in less than three weeks. It didn't occur to you that with a lack of personnel to patrol the parks, that there are enough people who think they can get away with it? And this is happening in what's normally low visitation season.
This administration is ordering that national parks be open to "prove" that they can somehow operate without normal levels of federal workers ("starve the beast"), and as a favor to the concessionaires. It's not working. I don't like the idea of shutting them down, but at this point I don't see a better option than that.
About the 4th paragraph the author says the winter months are the busiest. Some govt employees are working w/o pay because of a civil duty they have, an obligation to serve our nation and do their due diligence. These people also have to pay for their health insurance, work 40 + hrs/ wk and pass a urinalysis. Unlike most elected officials. So while some talk about it over a Michelin star dinner, its probably federal employees' families having to move there to the park while its not too hot... believe it or not, most households are a paycheck, a dr bill, a stomach flu away from losing EVERYTHING. While the govt has a history of over spending, taking their ball and going home isnt an option thats reasonable. This would explain the "extremely rare level of vandalism" in just three weeks: hostility, bitterness, anger, frustration.
Oh and sone people are just disrespectful jerks.
the official quoted in the article said this is a busy season because of the lower temperatures. Where did you gather intel to refute him?
"Low visitation season" you must not be familiar with this park
Day after day this country is looking more like that movie Idiocracy. It's a slow boil.
Right you is.
laws and restraint are never more in need. the "open borders" of the innocent desert has attracted the worse citizens. they feel entitled to do what thjey like, have fun on off-roads and making their own roads. the damage is lasting. we should all be aware that the moth that fertilizes the joshua tree is almost extinct, preventing new gestation and therefor replacement of these vulnerable icons...have some rerspect
except there isnt a wall surrounding the entire park and no one is suggesting that as a solution to solve the vandalism. Plus people are going around the man made barriers in place without supervision of the park showing that these types of barriers are ineffective And easily deterred. Monitoring entry points and proper surveillance work under normal operations of a park to keep it clean.
What's even more gross is that there's any comments on here defending or excusing this behavior.
Lalala la lalala la Cheetoh‘s world.
OK, folks, let's try to keep the commentary civil. There are a number of comments that didn't make it through the filters, and we'd really like to keep the story open for constructive comments.
I do not believe this story to be entirely true. Perhaps other reasons the general public are not yet aware. For the most part, people that are prepared to camp, such as the clean camp site demonstrates, and the tree not cut, but fallen, demonstrates respect for the natural world. Perhaps these stories are in collusion for acts of confusion. But why? Is the real story.
Note to the uneducated on this specific park...while all National Parks only desinate a certain area for camping and/or wilderness permits, this particular park is very unique in that the ground floor of this desert is living. Yes, the ground itself is made up of a delicate layer of biopic organisms, cryptobiopic crusts, that are hidden in the surface of the desert soils and rarely noticed by most hikers and visitors. This cryptobiopic crust plays a very important role in the health of the desert, particularly with moisture levels to help with drought, absorbing precious rainfall and nutrients, and assist with other lifeforms the be able to habitat in this severe climate. It is a very delicate and long proces for this to grow and spread, and driving, hiking, or any disturbance, as in not being on the intended trails and roads provided in the park, can cause major harm to this ecosystem, and in fact cause massive wind and water erosion. THIS IS WHY IT IS WRONG TO CAMP OR HIKE OR DRIVE ANYWHERE YOU PLEASE HERE! Stop trying to defend stupidity please and protect out precious parks.
Wandering witness, the "clean campsite" is out of bounds.
It's illegal to hang a hammock from those tree much less cut them down. There are some serious idiots on here
Question for the Author; where did you get the photo of the downed Joshua Tree?
The photo came from the Park Service at Joshua Tree, as the "NPS" in the credit line indicates.
Is there any reason to believe that the felled tree in question was felled after the shut down? The trash in the northern portion of the park((the area where most tourists go) has been almost zero since the closure, the bathrooms clean, and the outhouses stocked with toilet paper. My understanding from people who cleaned it is that the southern area near Cottonwood was filthy and had overflowing trash cans until December 26 at which time the local volunteers got most of it clean, including the ash filled fire rings. My understanding is that there have been two or three recent incidents of off road damage, but I have not heard anyone claim that the damage was done after (much less as a result of) the shutdown. I can say with close to certainty that, excluding camp grounds which have been blocked off and which I did not visit) the climbing areas and the viewing areas and the places local people go to walk their dogs did not need cleaning, did not need toilet paper, did not need pumping of the latrines.
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