S-0617.1                   _______________________________________________

                                            SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 8002

                              _______________________________________________

State of Washington                              53rd Legislature                             1993 Regular Session

By Senators Talmadge, Owen and Fraser

Read first time 01/15/93.  Referred to Committee on Ecology & Parks.

Requesting the national park service increase resource protection programs.

          TO THE HONORABLE BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, AND TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR:

          We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

          WHEREAS, The United States national park service was created to manage national parks "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations"; and

          WHEREAS, The national park system received two hundred sixty-eight million visitors in 1991 and is expected to receive as many as five hundred million visitors a year by the year 2010; and

          WHEREAS, Tourism is an important component of the Washington state economy and is sustained, in part, by three major national parks--Mt. Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades--which protect unique scenic and ecological resources; and

          WHEREAS, National park resources are often threatened by activities and environmental problems, including air and water pollution, that take place outside park boundaries; and

          WHEREAS, The national park service has a backlog of more than four thousand seven hundred resource protection programs, costing about four hundred seventy-seven million dollars, that are necessary to prevent or mitigate known threats to parks; and

          WHEREAS, Only ten percent of the national park service's fiscal year 1992 operating budget is allocated to natural resource management programs and park service officials have stated that natural resource funding would need to be two to three times the current level to adequately meet annual natural resource management needs; and

          WHEREAS, The office of inspector general within the department of interior found that the national park service does not have a complete natural resources inventory to identify potential threats to park resources, nor does the agency have a monitoring program sufficient to assist park managers in managing their natural resources; and

          WHEREAS, The long-term effect of inadequate funding is a degradation of some parks' natural resource values and a reduction in the attraction of the parks to future generations; and

          WHEREAS, National park resource protection and visitor service programs serve to protect public investments and create an economic stimulus for the area in which they are undertaken;

          NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that the park service increase natural resource protection programs and reduce the backlog of visitor service, repair, and rehabilitation projects; and

          BE IT RESOLVED, That your Memorialists support additional funding for the completion and updating of resource management plans for each of the major national parks; and

          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That your Memorialists support the enhancement of park service science programs so that the agency can better understand threats to the resource and options for mitigating damage to park resources; and

          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That your Memorialists support cooperative programs among federal agencies, state and local governments, tribes, and private landowners to assure that land use activities in or near national parks will not damage park resources; and

          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That your Memorialists support the use of volunteer efforts and youth conservation corps programs to meet the maintenance and resource protection needs of park units while creating jobs and contributing to the economic development of adjacent communities; and

          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable Bill Clinton, President of the United States, the Director of the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.

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