Dear advocate for public lands,

The National Park Service has extended the deadline for you to make comments on proposed restrictions to the public’s access at Rocky Mountain National Park. The new deadline is Monday, July 26th, at 11:59pm.

You can leave your comments by going to this link.

The NPS extended the deadline because their system crashed the weekend before the old deadline on the 23rd. Bad timing, right? I think it goes straight to the heart of the matter.

What Rocky Mountain National Park and our entire National Park System need is better, more professional management.

Instead, we have career government employees who see the public as a threat to preservation. Instead of working with the public to find management solutions (many of which work in the private sector) they want to lock you out.

It’s insane. It’s unnecessary. It’s unfair. And it’s undemocratic.

And it’s not clear Superintendent Sidles has the legal authority she claims she has. We have lawyers looking into this with the possibility of litigation to stop her in the courts if it comes to that. The 1916 Act which she’s cited as her source of authority for locking the public out of public lands states that the purpose of the National Park Service is:

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.

I’d say permanent restrictions on the public’s right to enjoy public lands are a pretty big impairment to future generations. They’re certainly an impairment to the current generation. It’s hard to enjoy natural wonders and wildlife if you need a reservation to go outside.

Many of you have written to ask what more you can do. One answer is to engage with the NEPA process initiated by the Superintendent. This process is designed to study the environmental (and other consequences) of a proposed action by a federal agency (in this case, a permanent restriction system in Rocky Mountain National Park designed by Superintendent Sidles and apparently supported by her boss Mike Reynolds).

But NEPA does impose certain obligations on Federal Agencies. There is a Citizen’s Guide to NEPA, updated earlier this year, that I encourage you to look at if you want to be more deeply involved.

You can find that guide here (and download it as a PDF if you like).

The key thing is to comment as early in the process as you can and stay engaged. NEPA requires the NPS to consider other solutions to the problem it’s identified. Many of you have written to me with those solutions. Tell the NPS too.

Get it on public record. Make them see there are common sense ways to preserve the Park’s resources without permanently reducing public access.

Also, according to the guide, ‘NEPA requires Federal agencies to consider the effects of their actions on the environment, included interrelated social, cultural, and economic effects.’

In other words, the Superintendent can’t treat the Park like it’s her own private backyard. Her decision to seek permanent restrictions on dubious environmental grounds will have an impact on Estes Park, Grand Lake, Larimer Country, Grand County, the State of Colorado, and every National Park in the country potentially if this precedent is set.

• Socially, cutting off low-income workers from spontaneous or convenient access to the Park is clearly a negative consequence.
• Culturally, creating a two-tier system where only wealthy and retired people can make (or hoard) reservations strikes at democratic values like equality and fairness.
• Environmentally, restrictions on Park access fundamentally contradict the mission of the NPS to begin with, that these are places of refuge and enjoyment for all Americans, without reservation.

Those are the comments I’m going to make and get on the record. At the end of the day, I suspect they will be ignored anyway,. But over 5,000 people have signed our petition. And every single one of them agrees, at some level, that an important principle is at stake here: public lands belong to the people.

There ARE alternative ways for the NPS to handle growing visitor numbers in RMNP. We shouldn’t see those numbers as a crisis. The Park’s are fulfilling exactly the mission they were established for.

More positive, competent,  forward-looking (and less political) managers would find a way to solve these operational problems. Instead, the Superintendent is treating the public like it's the enemy, like you and your family are a nuisance and a threat to preservation.

It's unfair (and un-American) to treat people this way. We're not giving up or going away. I’ll keep you posted on any further developments as they occur.

In the meantime, please take some time this weekend to leave your comments for the NPS and make it a matter of public record. We’re going to make it impossible for them to ignore us.

Until next time,

Dan

PS If you have a technical issue with the website (or it mysteriously fails again before the deadline on Monday, July 26th, at 11:59pm) you can submit your written comment in the mail. Address it to:

Superintendent Darla Sidles
Rocky Mountain National Park
1000 US Highway 36
Estes Park, CO 80517