Will Closing California State Parks Save the State Anything?

"We know that closing state parks won't save money. It will actually cost the state tax revenue," said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the California State Parks Foundation and one of 11 speakers at the packed auditorium at Cavallo Point, in Fort Baker. -Peter Fimrite & Wyatt Buchanan, SFGate.com Sept. 23, 2009

It seems sometimes like we Californians have short memories. We have been in a situation where we have had a horrible (or no) budget for so long that we forget it was all the way back in January of 2008 that governor Schwarzenegger recommended we close all or part of 48 of the state’s 279 parks to help close the budget gap.

Nineteen months later, we sit on the precipice of the closure of 100 of the state’s 279 parks! That would leave a mere 179 parks open for a state the size of more than half the Eastern Seaboard with a population of nearly 35 million people (not counting the millions of tourists who come here every year just to visit the state parks)! News reports indicate that the final list has been delayed and should be released to the public sometime this week. As of today, it appears as though hearing are still underway and no new date has been given for the release of any list.

In a time where natural resources appear to be dwindling at an ever-increasing rate and more people turn inward toward technology to keep themselves entertained, more and more of us need to get out an experience nature. We need to get out and explore our state! We need access to our state parks in order to do that!

Coupled with these proposed closures is, you guessed it, an increase in fees! So, theorhetically, when more of us are driving further (using more gas, polluting more, etc) to get to the few parks there are, we will be met by larger crowds and will have to pay more to access the wilderness. Where, in anyone’s logic, does this make sense? While I understand the guv’s determination not to raise taxes (and can, on a level, respect that), there are some places where increased taxes do something good! Now, the question comes up “What if we can make the parks self-sustaining?”
And before fears of privatizing the parks and letting the free market run them creep up, let’s hear what Adam Summers at reason.org had to say about just this idea about three weeks ago:

If user fees go up, some will say that the state is pricing out the poor. But there are ways to accommodate all income groups. The demand for park services is not constant year-round, or even throughout the week. Parks that use market pricing would have an incentive to reduce fees during times of low demand and increase fees during times of high demand. Thus, anyone who wanted to save money on recreation fees could do so by visiting parks during off-peak days or seasons.

If that’s not enough, the state could set aside an allotment of passes each day to distribute on a first-come, first-served basis. This method would allow anyone willing to get in line early for tickets to pay with their time instead of their dollars.

Summers also notes that demand for state parks and beaches is still incredibly high despite the current economic situation. I can attest to that because no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t able to make reservations to get out and do some camping this summer! Very disappointing for me, but it should be a clear and positive sign to the state that our parks are valuable and closing them would do everyone a great disservice!

So let’s say the state goes ahead and closes some of the parks. What happens then? Well, depending on who you talk to the answer ranges everywhere between potential liability lawsuits to outright wild west style desperados growing ginormous pot farms! In a recent article in the San Jose Mercury News, closing any state parks could mean a breach of contract with the private companies who provide concessionary services in those state parks. Furthermore, if someone were to enter a closed state park and either hurt themselves or set fire to the place or cause some other chain of damaging events into motion, the state could still be liable for allowing “dangerous conditions” to exist within state park boundaries.

My first thought on this goes toward a park like Big Basin Redwoods State Park (California’s first state park, by the way) up in the Santa Cruz Mountains near the town of Boulder Creek. Big Basin straddles Highway 236 which leaves Highway 9 at one end and reconnects with it in Boulder Creek. Highway 236 has many private roads that branch off from it on which private residents reside. If California were to close Big Basin, how would they then prevent people from still entering the park while allowing residents to freely traverse Highway 236? I don’t see how they could without actually costing tax-payers more money in the long term! Closing that park just does not make sense.

An article over at Mother Jones notes that the current trend of rather aggressive pot farmers setting up shop in remote corners of large state parks and wilderness areas could run rampant if the states goes ahead with park closures. Without rangers to patrol these areas, author Josh Harkenson fears that local “neighborhood watch style groups” would take up where the rangers left off. But that’s not so smart an idea, according to Harkenson. As I reported in Mother Jones' July/August issue, a third of California's national parks and all of its national forests have already been colonized by aggressive pot farmers. Where hippies once grew just enough weed to peace out, traffickers now cultivate more than 100,000 plants at a time on 30-acre terraces irrigated by plastic pipe, laced with illegal pesticides, and guarded by MAC-10s and Uzis. The state’s liability insurance rates are poised to shoot through the roof should something of this magnitude happen. And the state, funding through the public, would certainly foot the bill.

With the reality of dwindling outdoor resources and access very nigh, what can we do? We must take action! The folks over at calparks.org have a great site dedicated to helping preserve our parks and keep them open through these tough financial times with simple and effective steps each of us can do to show state government the values and benefits of our park system.