Among the thousands who gathered at national parks Saturday to protest the slashing of National Park Service jobs was former Utah Public Radio Access Utah host Lee Austin, who resides in a community near Capital Reef National Park. Lee spoke with UPR’s Kerry Bringhurst about the foreseeable impact to the 2,300 residents living in Wayne County should the park have limited service, or possibly shut down, as the tourism season approaches.
Capitol Reef National Park has recorded as many as 1 million visitors to the park in a season’s time.
Lee Austin: So it was a volunteer who works in the park, people familiar with park, people who live in the area, and people who fear the impact on the economy.
Kerry Bringhurst: You were surprised by the number of those who turned out.
Lee Austin: I started seeing emails on Friday morning, and the event took place Saturday morning at 11. Estimates 70-80 people there.
Kerry Bringhurst: And some of those that you spoke to?
Lee Austin: Well, Clark Taylor is a long term — he said, fourth generation from Moab. He lives in Teasdale now. And he introduced himself and had some interesting comments on the economy of the park.
Clark Taylor: I work for Wayne County Department of Tourism. I'm not representing them. I'm representing myself. We are looking at probably 30% decline in income in this surrounding area in businesses that depend upon these national parks. Protecting these national monuments, whether it historic or geographic, builds a drawing card for people to come down and enjoy and see what's ours as a residual effect to that: our motels, our restaurants, our tour guides. This is not a wealthy county, as you know.
Lee Austin: And he's right. Wayne County is not a wealthy county. There's a lot of low income issues. Housing is very problematic, so a big hit to the economy that they fear would be particularly unwelcome there.
Kerry Bringhurst: The economy, but also maybe taking it personally.
Lee Austin: Yes. So our next speaker, Alan Dewey, works in the park as a volunteer. He's been around for a long time. So again, while park service employees are not going to comment on the situation, he felt free to step up to the mic and had this to say.
Alan Dewey: These cuts we've seen are ham-handed, wasteful, they're also cruel, punitive — and good, innocent, hardworking people like the park employees are caught in the cross fire. We love our park. Hands off.
Kerry Bringhurst: Yeah, it's probably a big hit on you when you volunteer to wonder if the work you're doing is really appreciated and if these national parks are being seen by the current administration as being something that's valuable.
Lee Austin: Exactly. Other people at the rally reflected on the value of public lands, while BLM is kind of the enemy agency for a lot of people, and in Washington, I think they're receiving a lot of hits. People recognize the value of these public lands to enjoy, to visit on. So Leita Kingsland, who lives in Torrey and moved to Utah when she was 20, was originally from Maryland, and had this to say.
Lita Kingsland: Coming from Maryland and growing up there, all of the woods that I went exploring in, they're gone. If we don't have these federal lands for ourselves and for our children and grandchildren, it's going to be like when I go back to Maryland and there's a little teeny streetcar trail that has trees around it, is all that's left of all the woods I used to explore. Thank you.
Lee Austin: They were giving out phone numbers. They were giving instructions on how to write a letter. They were passing around postcards to send in, and there was a lot of discussion about the best political strategy going forward. I think there is another — some national action on March 15, people were talking about.
