Washington, D.C. – The nation’s leading voice for the national parks, the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) today praised the Department of the Interior announcement of the specific job-creating projects that will be completed in national parks, including Great Basin National Park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada, as a result of the more than $900 million in stimulus funding provided by Congress.
“This important reinvestment in the crumbling infrastructure of our national parks is a step that will create jobs in large and small communities nationwide, and help to restore our nation’s heritage for our children and grandchildren,” said National Parks Conservation Association President Tom Kiernan. “There is much more to do to restore our national parks, but this is progress.”
The Department of the Interior’s list of National Park Service infrastructure projects includes $18.2 million for Lake Mead National Recreation Area to install a solar system at a warehouse complex, replace roofs, and repair roads with a special emphasis on rehabilitating nine miles of Northshore Road. Great Basin National Park will receive $85,000 to repair the park’s Timber Creek and Wheeler Peak Trails.
Stimulus funding provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has also funded similar solar projects, road maintenance and trail repairs in nearby Zion National Park in Utah and Death Valley National Park in California. In Mojave National Preserve, less than an hour from Las Vegas, funding was granted to temporarily close abandoned mines.
“Funding for Nevada’s national parks is long overdue,” said Lynn Davis, program manager of the National Parks Conservation Association’s Nevada field office. “It’s exciting that this funding can serve dual purposes in both employing Nevadans and restoring our local parks.”
In December, the National Parks Conservation Association published Working Assets: Reinvesting in National Parks to Create Jobs and Protect America’s Heritage, a report which called on Congress and the Administration to include national parks in economic recovery legislation and offered examples of ready-to-go, job-creating infrastructure projects in national parks nationwide.
The final bill passed by Congress in February included a measured investment of $900 million which will help reduce the Park Service’s massive, $9-billion backlog of critical maintenance and preservation projects, and address other park infrastructure needs.
Congress directed approximately $750 million toward national park infrastructure projects through the Department of the Interior; approximately $170 million is provided for national park road repair needs through the Department of Transportation.
An economic study commissioned by NPCA found that every federal dollar invested in national parks generates at least four dollars economic value to the public.
The National Parks Conservation Association is a nonprofit organization working with its more than 340,000 members to protect the park system and preserve our nation’s natural, historical, and cultural heritage for generations to come. Within the past year, NPCA opened a new field office in Nevada to protect the interests of Lake Mead and Great Basin within Nevada, along with nearby national parks in California and Utah.
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