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Even our governor is upset at a recent announcement from the National Park Service. Its budget faces reductions -- about $108 million -- and the Park Service has responded by proposing to close some of the hundreds of national battlefields, battlefield parks, battlefield sites, military parks, memorials, parks, historical parks, historic sites, monuments, preserves, seashores, parkways, lakeshores, reserves, rivers, wild and scenic rivers, recreation areas and scenic trails that it operates.
The criteria for possible closing are simple: A)
pick the units with the smallest budgets, until the totals add up to $108 million, or B) pick the units with the smallest numbers of visitors, and work up the list until they reach the desired total.
Thus seven national monuments in Colorado might be eliminated: Black Canyon, Great Sand Dunes, Colorado, Bent's Old Fort, Florissant Fossil Beds, Hovenweep and Yucca House.
This is just a dumb, dumb thing for the federal
government to be thinking about,
our governor
observed.
But our federal government constantly thinks about dumb things, and frequently does them -- Vietnam, Waco, the Volstead Act, etc. So instead of whining like our governor, we ought to prepare.
History should offer some guidance, because Colorado already has two abandoned national monuments. Wheeler National Monument, established in 1908, was our state's first national monument. It's an assortment of intriguing rock formations, accessible by four-wheel-drive a few miles north of Wagon Wheel Gap.
When it was a national monument, hardly anyone ever visited, and the Park Service didn't want to station rangers there when there was work for them elsewhere. So the area was transferred to the Forest Service, which has managed the resulting Wheeler Geologic Area for about 50 years.
Much the same thing happened to Holy Cross National Monument, which became official on May 11, 1929, and reverted to the Forest Service on Aug. 30, 1950.
The Park Service couldn't justify maintaining a ranger
station because fewer than 50 people a year then climbed
Notch Mountain to gaze upon Longfellow's mountain in the
distant West that, sun-defying, in its deep ravines,
displays a cross of snow upon its side.
So in the old days, if a national monument was closed, another agency would just pick it up. But these aren't the old days. Our Congress is now in the hands of folks who believe in privatization.
And to be honest, what's the point of trying to maintain and interpret our history with public money if Disney will do it for us, and show a profit at that?
Why bother preserving scenic geologic formations when we've got all this Third Wave technology that Speaker Newt likes? Send out some camera crews, put together a multi-media extravaganza, and let people experience it at an Imax theater, like the one at Zion National Park. Put the theaters in cities so more people can enjoy the virtual national parks, and we can close the real ones, thereby saving major money.
As for our seven national monuments which are so unpopular that they must be closed, they could be privatized. A swing around the Centennial State in a few years might reveal:
Imperial Gorge of the Gunnison near Montrose, owned by the same company that operates Royal Gorge of the Arkansas near Cañon City. Home of the world's highest bungee-jumping platform; other tasteful attractions include a high-speed glass-walled elevator to the floor, lynchings on the hour at a restored ghost town and the largest souvenir stand between Wall, S.D., and Gallup, N.M.
Bent's Fort Bed & Breakfast between La Junta and Las Animas. Prices range from $35 a night in the authentic adobe Servant Quarters to $150 in the Magoffin Suite. Enjoy Santa Fe Trail cuisine featuring alkali water with jackrabbit; don't miss the Mountain Man breakfast of boiled mule and Taos Lightning.
Great Sand Dunes Aggregates, northeast of Alamosa. After wending down the Mosca Pass Toll Road, you'll be rewarded with the sight of screens and washers at the largest gravel processing plant in the world. Heavy trucks head out from here in all directions, serving upscale NIMBY communities, ranging from Vail and other Denver suburbs into New Mexico, that want concrete but don't want gravel pits in their back yards.
Florissant Quarry, near Cripple Creek: Still a major source of the petrified wood used for executive paperweights, and the one remaining stump is a splendid reminder of the living sequoia forest in California that was sold to Louisiana-Pacific in 1996 as part of a move to balance the federal budget.
The Heights at Dos Rios, near Grand Junction. Formerly a barren wasteland of rock spires and canyons, this useless area was filled with uranium-mill tailings to form the base for a spectacular subdivision. As you gaze out in the evening from the deck of your trophy home, you'll be able to see the stars twinkling over the majestic San Juans, the moon rising over Grand Mesa and your significant other glowing romantically in the dark.
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