The Washington Post reports that Trump’s government shutdown can already be measured in the lives of Americans who had died in the newly lawless zone of the National Parks. But it’s not just the bodies that are piling up. Across the system, trash cans are overflowing, human waste is going into streams around shuttered facilities, and tourists are venturing into areas that are not only dangerous, but fragile.
As National Geographic reports, the damage being done to the parks won’t disappear the moment Trump decides his ego has been satisfied. Damage that has been done in days will take years to heal, and it’s growing worse.
“Never before have I seen the federal government tempt fate in national parks the way we are today,” says Diane Regas, president of the Trust for Public Land. “It's not about what has happened already. It's about what could happen if you don't have the appropriate staffing.”
Campsites in Joshua Tree National Park have been closed as pit toilets overflow with human waste. Elsewhere, open sewage is flowing over roads and trails. Trash, which in normal times is carefully managed in parks to protect wildlife, is heaped around campsites, overflowing cans, and spread along roads.
Quartz has estimated that Yosemite is developing a new mountain — one made from 27 tons of uncollected trash. And that’s just one park.
With few rangers on patrol in many parks, tourists are getting off trails and into areas that are ecologically sensitive. That includes damaging desert areas where recovery can be measured in decades. It could also mean damage to rock formations, and removal of fossils or archaeological artifacts that will never be returned.
Across the park system, there are areas under little control — thermal features at Yellowstone, fossils purposely left in remote areas of Big Bend, Dinosaur, and Badlands, ancient dwellings and artifacts at Mesa Verde and Aztec and Chaco Culture … and that’s just scratching the surface. There are historical artifacts at dozens of battlefields marking the Civil and Revolutionary Wars. All of them are being protected by only a handful of personnel.
In past shutdowns, many of the parks were simply closed, with the few remaining rangers left to safeguard the entrances. But those shut downs led to bad publicity. Trump is trying to get around this by having it both ways, leave the parks open … just don’t fund them.
And, actually, under-funding and destroying National Parks was already a Republican specialty. Don’t be surprised if cleaning up the damage is very low on the agenda.
