“Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has released a report that says a number of America’s national parks have failed to create long-term plans.
The lack of planning comes as parks face growing problems.
The National Park Service has been without a director for about five years.
Now a watchdog group says that several parks have failed to draft a plan of operations.
When PEER pushed the agency for a reason, it said the requirement was “obsolete.”
PEER spokesman Jeff Ruch said that while the parks fail to plan, they face overcrowding and a growing maintenance backlog.
“So you would think that if there was a time for planning it would be now. But we’re sort of getting the opposite of that. You know, the Park Service is not only refusing to do that but they are claiming the statute is obsolete, which is, I’m a lawyer and I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Ruch said.
PEER lists four parks in Arizona that have operated without plans for decades.”
