Saturday, June 28, 2008

Improvements worth millions depend on matching U.S. funds

By EDDIE JIMENEZ
The Fresno Bee

last updated: August 24, 2007 04:02:46 AM

YOSEMITE -- Yosemite National Park is leading the way in a new effort to reel in private donations for improvements at some of the nation's most treasured places.

Donors have stepped forward to help pay for more projects at Yosemite than at any other park nationwide as part of a National Park Service initiative, formally unveiled Thursday, aimed at prodding Congress to boost park funding.

Under the "centennial challenge," pegged to the 100th anniversary of the park service in 2016, the private donations would materialize only if Congress provided matching funds.

A spending bill is awaiting approval in the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Yosemite would be a big winner.

During a news conference Thursday at Yosemite with Half Dome as the backdrop, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and National Park Service Director Mary Bomar released a list of 201 projects to be funded next year under the plan. Among those, 17 are in Yosemite.

More than $300 million pledged

The Yosemite projects include a $3.1 million environmental education campus and $4 million worth of improvements to more than 50 miles of trails.

"It's a huge deal," said Scott Gediman, spokesman for Yose- mite National Park. "It's the biggest public-private partnership in the history of the national parks."

Kempthorne held a binder filled with 321 letters of commitment from corporations, nonprofits and visitors' groups. They have pledged more than $300 million.

"Working with the parks' partners allows us to take a giant leap toward the parks of tomorrow," Kempthorne said. "This is our opportunity as the current stewards to do our part."

For Yosemite Superintendent Michael Tollefson, who helped select the winning projects from parks' wish lists across the country, landing a spot on the prior- ity list puts the park closer to making repairs on an overlook fronting Half Dome, the granite formation that rises more than 4,000 feet above the valley floor.

"Our trail around Yosemite Valley is an absolutely beautiful way to see the park, but on the busiest days of the summer, use on that trail is almost nonexistent because it's so degraded," Tollefson said. "This will help us make sure the visitor has the best experience."

At St. Louis' Gateway Arch, park officials hope to use the new funds to start a "Parkpa- looza" educational program to reach youth through multimedia stations scattered throughout the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

"The last big, heady time for the park service like this was in the 1950s, when they built up the infrastructure to serve the growing population and the car culture," said Frank Mares, deputy superintendent.

But some wilderness lovers were uneasy at the growing influx of private money in the parks and worried that the initiative could give way to influence peddling by private industry.

"Pretty soon, this is going to be Coca-Cola's Yosemite Valley or Nike's Tuolumne Meadows," said Scott Ayers, 47, a rock climber from Tucson.

Bomar, the park service director, said park employees were expressly barred from soliciting donations, and said the park system followed strict guidelines about what kind of public recognition donors could expect. "You're not going to see any golden arches in any of our parks," Bomar said.

Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, who attended the news conference Thursday, said paying for national parks is always a challenge for Congress because of tight funds. But he acknowledged that this public- private initiative "makes obtaining the federal dollars more doable."

The 17 projects approved for Yosemite will cost more than $15 million. The partner for most of them is the Yosemite Fund, a nonprofit group.

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