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NATIONAL PARKS OF FLORIDA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JANUARY 11, 2006

Serial No. 109–149

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

DIANE E. WATSON, California

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

MARK PFUNDSTEIN, Professional Staff Member

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on January 11, 2006 ......................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Fields, Sherri, Chief, Natural Resources Division, Southeast Region, National Park Service ....................................................................................... 8

Reed, Nathaniel, member of National Council, National Parks Conservation Association; and Dexter Lehtinen, senior member, South Florida

Ecosystem Restoration Task Force .............................................................. 35

Lehtinen, Dexter ....................................................................................... 62

Reed, Nathaniel ......................................................................................... 35

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Fields, Sherri, Chief, Natural Resources Division, Southeast Region, National Park Service, prepared statement of ................................................ 12

Lehtinen, Dexter, senior member, South Florida Ecosystem Restoration

Task Force , prepared statement of ............................................................. 69

Reed, Nathaniel, member of National Council, National Parks Conservation Association, prepared statement of ...................................................... 41

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 5

(1)

NATIONAL PARKS OF FLORIDA

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Miami, FL.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., at

Miami City Hall in Coconut Grove, Miami, FL, Hon. Mark E.

Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder and Ros-Lehtinen.

Staff present: Marc Wheat, staff director; Jim Kaiser, counsel;

Mark Pfundstein, professional staff member; and Malia Holst,

clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. If we could have order, I’m going to go ahead and

start the hearing.

Good afternoon, the subcommittee will come to order.

Thank you for joining us today. This is the eighth in a series of

hearings focusing on the critical issues facing the National Park

Service. I would like to welcome the Members of Congress who

have joined us today, my wonderful colleague from the State of

Florida, and those who care deeply about the national parks.

Thus far, we’ve not only had a Washington hearing, we’ve had

field hearings in Gettysburg, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Honolulu, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, we have one scheduled in February

for Atlanta. We’ll have one in Anchorage in August, and we don’t

have the date set yet for the Indiana Dunes and the Chicago area,

and we may do one in the Rockies. The point here is to try to do

them regionally around the country, see what things are different

in each region, and which things are the same. This is, by far, the

most comprehensive series of hearings that has ever been done in

the National Park Service. There are, obviously, the Resources

Committee and the National Parks Subcommittee, of which I spent

probably about, I think, the last 6 years up until this year when

I took leave to go back to education, actually, in 2005. We do occasional oversight, but there you are dealing with the day-to-day alterations to land, new heritage areas, different debates, and once

in a while you may do a thing on demonstration fees or that, but

you don’t do a comprehensive oversight and analysis. And, that’s

really the purpose of the Government Reform Committee, which existed actually before the authorizing committees.

Historically, Congress always had appropriations committees and

the next group was the oversight, and then the third thing was the

authorizing. It was a somewhat rocky start to get these hearings

2

done, because the Government Reform Committee has never done

anything before in the parks and resources area. So, everybody who

thought it was solely their jurisdiction was not thrilled with these

hearings. The administration thought that this would be a constant

push for more money. The different subcommittees were concerned

about jurisdiction, but as we worked through, basically, hey, that’s

what we do in Government Reform. Last year we were probably

most famous for Mark McGuire saying to our committee that he

didn’t want to talk about the past, which, of course, in an oversight

committee that’s what we do, is we talk about the past to try to

set up about the future, where if you look at the process, Congress

spends the money. If you look at it, say, in education, Education

Committee would set the policy and the authorizing, fund it

through the Appropriations Education Subcommittee, and then the

Government Reform from Education would do oversight.

So, every cycle our committee predominantly focuses, because we

do authorizing and oversight, on narcotics, and have spent much of

this week in Florida on that issue. But because we have a broad

range, and we can’t ever do complete oversight over anything, the

chairman has wide discretion working with the ranking member to

choose what areas that you want to do oversight on.

For example, the departments that we have oversight over would

be anything with narcotics, which overlaps heavily into homeland

security, because we are the primary border subcommittee, but we

also have Health and Human Services, HHS, Education, HUD,

Justice, and we one other one, it’s basically 70 percent of the budget that—and then I traded Commerce to get Park Service. In addition, we have the White House Oversight on Faith-Based and other

White House operations, so it’s wide ranging. And, I chose this

cycle that I wanted to focus on the Park Service. I think with the

100th birthday coming up that it’s important that we look at this

like we did Mission 66 prior to 1966 for the 50th birthday, and say

where is the Park Service headed? What do we do? What do we

want it to look like in the 100th birthday, and what do we want

it to look like for future generations after the 100th birthday. And,

whenever you have these huge timing periods, like the anniversaries, it’s a time when you do reanalysis to look at this.

This hearing will focus on the parks of Florida. In most of these

we highlight one, like the Grand Canyon, but then do that region.

Last year, millions of Americans visited the State of Florida and

millions more live here. Many of these people visit any of the 10

National Park Service units located here. These sites are historic,

cultural, and natural, and all make unique contributions to the

Park Service.

Florida is the home of the first permanent European settlement

in the continental United States. This story is preserved at the

Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, which I visited earlier this

week.

Perhaps the best known of the Florida’s units is Everglades National Park. This park protects unique ecosystems, endangered species, and water quality in south Florida. Importantly, the Everglades are in a state of renewal and restoration. This restoration

has been controversial and expensive, but can teach us much about

preservation, environmental impairment, and restoration.

3

When the Republicans took over in 1994, the year that I came

in, due to the leadership of the south Florida delegation they got,

basically, Speaker Gingrich became interested in this and really

initiated kind of an awareness more than had ever been in the U.S.

Congress, broad-based, that we needed to address this whole question of population growth and the uniqueness of water.

West of the Mississippi in the Resources Committee that is what

you debate all the time, is water; basically, who gets what percentage of the Colorado River, and how can they move it, and can they

steal some of the Great Lakes water because they don’t have

enough out of the Colorado River. That’s, basically, what the Resources Committee does. If they are not talking about forest fires,

they are talking about water.

But, east of the Mississippi we don’t talk about it as much, except down here in Florida where this is a kind of where you took

a whole State that used to be wet, and now have built it heavily,

and what does that do to the ecosystem of the State of Florida, and

how does Florida resolve this.

A critical part of the parks of south Florida is environmental

preservation. Of particular importance is the conservation of

unique coral formations. These reefs provide homes, not only to

unique wildlife, but also support human existence through water

purification and protection from the ocean’s fury.

The National Park Service is facing many challenges and problems. Management and funding are of constant concern to all park

units. Underneath these problems are problems special to each

park unit. In Florida, environmental degradation is of particular

concern.

As we have frequently seen over the last few years, Florida sits

directly in the path of hurricanes. These storms disrupt the dayto-day living of Florida’s citizens and the balance of nature. Although hurricanes are themselves natural phenomena, they can

and do destroy nature’s delicate balance. They also damage Park

Service assets which conserve the ecology of Florida and facilitate

visits to these exceptional areas. Restoration and rehabilitation of

park facilities in the face of recurring hurricanes is certainly a

daunting task that will not end, but perhaps can be improved as

we learn more about nature and hurricanes.

I would like to welcome Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to

this hearing. Although she is not a member of this subcommittee,

she is a member of the full Committee on Government Reform, and

one of the more senior members. I think we are probably two of the

five or six most senior members on the committee, she more senior

than I. Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen is a strong advocate for Florida and for the national parks.

On our first panel, I’d like welcome to Sherri Fields, chief of the

Natural Resources Division of the Southeast Region of the National

Park Service. She will be joined during the question time by Superintendents Karen Gustin of Big Cypress National Preserve, Dan

Kimball from the Everglades National Park, and Mark Lewis from

the Biscayne National Park.

Our second panel will be Nathaniel Reed with the National Park

Conversation Association and also Dexter Lehtinen with the South

Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force.

4

I also want to point out that you don’t see that many field hearings working without the minority member, but we have a very bipartisan approach, which a lot of times people think all we do in

Congress is fight, but, in fact, we work together on a number of

issues. And Elijah Cummings is the ranking member on this subcommittee, and almost everything we do on narcotics, everything

we do on parks, has been bipartisan, and it requires the minority

and the majority to be working together to be able to do these type

of field hearings, which we’ve done around the country, and we’ve

been able to do that even in the continued and difficult atmosphere

in Washington. But it’s very important in the legacy of the National Park Service that we try to maintain as much as possible a

bipartisan support base, so that the Park Service survives no matter which party takes control, and no matter which branch of which

party takes control, it has to be something that can survive

through multiple generations and changes in the political system.

With that, I’d like to yield to my friend and colleague, Ms. Ileana

Ros-Lehtinen.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]

5

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7

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mark, and I thank you

and your wonderful hard work down here. The Park Service is a

very important part of our daily life in all of Florida, and especially

south Florida, and not just for tourists, but native Miamians enjoy

the beauty of our parks as well. And, I’m so delighted that you’ve

asked the superintendents and the different officials from the National Park Services to testify today, Sherri Fields, Karen Gustin,

Dan Kimball, Mark Lewis, representing Everglades National Park,

Biscayne National Park, etc.

And, this hearing is very important, because we’ve had a very

difficult hurricane season. As you pointed out, it’s a natural phenomenon, but it’s had a devastating impact, and no area of south

Florida has been immune from the impact, certainly not the parks

themselves.

I’m blessed to have Biscayne National Park and Dry Tortugas

National Parks in my congressional district, and my colleague,

Mario Diaz, is blessed to have Everglades National Park in his congressional district. So, a lot of us share the common problems that

the parks are facing with continued use and making sure that we

can keep our natural resources for the enjoyment of mankind, as

well as for the beauty that it has for the tourists who come down

here.

I’ve got, almost 70 miles west of Key West lies a cluster of seven

islands composed of coral reefs and sand called the Dry Tortugas,

and I know that you will be visiting this area shortly, along with

the surrounding shoals and waters they make up what is called the

Dry Tortugas National Park. The area is known for its famous

birds and marine life, and this is certainly a pristine national park.

It’s got exquisite reefs, abundant sea life, and impressive numbers

of birds, and it’s one of our greatest natural treasures, but it needs

mankind to make sure that we can keep these areas as pristine as

possible, yet allow folks to use these treasures as well. I don’t think

that park should be run like by a librarian who hates it when

somebody comes into the library to take a book off the shelf, because then it disturbs the order of the books on the shelf. National

parks are to be enjoyed by all of us as well, and we’ve got to find

that balance so that they can be open and enjoyed by everyone.

And, as we know, and you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, in your

opening statement, the National Park Service had its founding in

1916. It’s grown substantially, and it’s caused an escalation and a

demand of its resources, and we need to work together to determine how we can best address the needs of the National Park Service, especially here in south Florida. Our national parks in our area

are facing many challenges, the hurricane season that I mentioned

had an especially devastating impact on our parks. For example, in

Everglades National Park one of the world’s greatest natural resources, it draws thousands of visitors annually, it’s critical that

visitors have access to all areas of the park. The Flamingo Lodge

suffered great damage from our hurricanes, and I hope that the

National Park Service plans to rebuild the Flamingo Lodge so that

it can be used by our community and visitors alike.

The Everglades is one of the most precious and abundant fish

and wildlife preserves in the United States, and protection of this

unique habitat has been a national priority, and we take great

8

pride being in south Florida saying that we’ve got this beautiful

treasure right in our backyard.

So, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this timely

hearing, for coming down here and being able to experience it yourself, for examining the crucial issues that we are facing, such as

the preservation, and the maintenance, and the law enforcement,

and homeland security aspects of national parks as well, and I look

forward to the testimony of the superintendents and the distinguished panel of witnesses, and welcome the opportunity to work

together with you, Mr. Chairman, and your staff, and other members of the subcommittee to ensure that our national parks are

properly preserved and maintained so that we can enjoy them for

my daughter’s generation.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

Before we hear testimony, we need to take care of some procedural matters. First, I ask unanimous consent that all Members

have 5 legislative days to submit written statements and questions

for the hearing record, that the answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the record.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents

and other materials referred to by Members and witnesses may be

included in the hearing record, and that all Members be permitted

to revise and extend their remarks.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that all Members present be

permitted to participate in the hearing.

Without objection, it is so ordered.

Our first panel, if you would come forward, is Sherri Fields,

Chief of Natural Resources Division, Southeast Region of the National Park Service. She will be accompanied by Karen Gustin, superintendent of Big Cypress National Preserve, Dan Kimball, superintendent of Everglades National Park, and Mark Lewis, superintendent of Biscayne National Park.

And, if you could all come up, I’ll actually need to swear you in.

Normally, this isn’t a big deal, but we do this as an oversight committee, Raphael Palmeiro found it can be a big deal, hopefully, we

won’t have to do any of that. If you’d raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative, and I understand that Sherri will be

giving—Ms. Fields will be giving the testimony, and then the others will be available for questions.

The rest of you can sit now, if you want, during the testimony,

and then as we get into questioning we’ll do that.

Ms. Fields.

STATEMENT OF SHERRI FIELDS, CHIEF, NATURAL RESOURCES DIVISION, SOUTHEAST REGION, NATIONAL PARK

SERVICE

Ms. FIELDS. Great, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate

this opportunity to appear before you today, to discuss some key

9

issues facing the national parks here in Florida, with particular

focus on the cost of restoring natural landscapes.

I will take the next few minutes to present a few short remarks,

while providing a more complete written testimony for the record.

First, on behalf of the National Park Service, I would like to acknowledge and thank Congress for its continuing support of our

parks and programs in the Southeast Region, as well as the entire

National Park System.

With me today are Karen Gustin, superintendent of Big Cypress

National Preserve, Dan Kimball, superintendent of Everglades National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park, and Mark Lewis, superintendent of Biscayne National Park. They will be happy to answer any specific questions about their parks at the conclusion of

my testimony.

The State of Florida is home to 11 units of the National Park

System, including Fort Caroline and DeSoto National Memorials,

Canaveral and Gov Island National Seashores, Castillo de San

Marcos and Fort Matanzas National Monuments, and the

Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.

Here in south Florida, we manage the three largest, and arguably most ecologically significant areas in the State. Everglades

National Park, the largest remaining sub-tropical wilderness in the

United States, Biscayne National Park, the largest marine park in

the National Park System, and Big Cypress National Preserve, the

first national preserve in the National Park System. Approximately

70 miles west of Key West, FL is Dry Tortugas, a cluster of seven

islands surrounding shoals and waters, and which includes Fort

Jefferson, one of the largest coastal forts ever built.

In 2004, Park Service units in Florida welcomed more than 9

million visitors, who generated millions of dollars in economic benefits to surrounding communities. The Park Service respects the responsibilities entrusted to us by the American people, and our focus

remains fixed on protecting these places for the enjoyment of

present and future generations.

As is the case throughout the National Park System, parks in

Florida are funded from several different sources, to help carry out

their important missions. Congress appropriated more than $31.5

million for the operation of the national parks of Florida in fiscal

year 2005. This is an increase of 6 percent from 2004.

In addition to these base funds, many units receive cyclic maintenance funds, and some construction and land acquisition funds designated for individual parks in annual appropriations bills. Parks

also collect concession fees, transportation fees and recreation fees.

For fiscal year 2005, Florida parks received over $3.3 million from

the 80 percent portion of the recreation fees that individual parks

retain, which were used for projects that benefit visitors.

In addition, Florida parks receive a great deal of financial and

in-kind support from cooperating associations, fringe groups and

other partnership entities.

I would now like to touch on some significant initiatives and

issues of great importance to our parks here in south Florida.

The Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act of

1989 authorized the addition of over 109,000 acres of the northeast

Shark River slew to the park. The act directed the Army Corps of

10

Engineers to improve water deliveries to Everglades National Park

and to the extent practicable take steps to restore the natural hydrologic conditions and the biological abundance and diversity of

the park. Through fiscal year 2005, the project received $191 million in Park Service construction funds and $100 million from the Land

and Water Conservation Fund, for the purpose of acquiring the

East Everglades addition to Everglades National Park, and to implement the Modified Water Deliveries Project. All but 500 acres

have been acquired, and several components of the project have

been completed.

For fiscal year 2006, the Congress appropriated an additional $60 million to the Park Service and the Corps to carry out the

modified Water Deliveries Project.

In 2000, Congress passed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan [CERP], a State and Federal partnership that is estimated to cost $12 billion and take several decades to complete. The

six to eight project components comprising CERP are intended to

provide benefits for the natural eco system, while also providing for

urban and agricultural uses.

To date, the State and Federal Governments have established

the legal assurances in the form of a binding and enforceable

agreement, as well as programmatic regulations to ensure that appropriate quantities of water that are produced by CERP are set

aside by the State of Florida and dedicated and managed for the

restoration of the Everglades Natural System.

Last year, the State of Florida announced its initiative to accelerate elements of the CERP and commit the funding necessary to

plan, design and construct these projects. This evidence of the

State’s commitment of more than $1.5 billion provides the opportunity to jump start the restoration plan agenda and is a major

boost for Everglades restoration.

While south Florida eco system restoration will provide for longterm benefits to the quantity, timing and quality of water flowing

through the system, shorter term efforts are also underway to address the single greatest threat to native plant communities at our

parks, non-native, invasive plants. For example, at Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve there are approximately 1,000 plant species recorded. Of these, more than 200 species are exotic invasives. With the generous funds appropriated by

Congress for our Exotic Plant Management Teams, we have been

able to forge an attack on species such as melaluca, old world

climbing fern, resilient pepper, and Australian pine.

Recognizing that invasive species cross geographic and jurisdictional boundaries, collaborative efforts among Federal, Tribal,

State and local entities, and willing private landowners, can be

highly effective in managing a shared problem. The partnership between the Park Service and the State Department of Environmental Protection is an example of how collaboration and

leveraging of funds can result in significant strides toward addressing this issue.

From 2000 to 2005, the State has nearly matched dollar for dollar Park Service funds to treat invasive plants and over 398,000

acres of park lands.

11

There are a number of other natural resource challenges facing

our parks, which I do not have time to address, but they include

the restoration of seagrass beds and coral reefs damaged by vessel

groundings at Biscayne, protecting wetlands and managing for offroad vehicle use at Big Cypress, and managing the recently implemented research natural area at Dry Tortugas.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, it is apparent that the devastation

caused by the two most destructive hurricane seasons in recent

memory has been imprinted in the minds of millions of Americans.

The national parks of Florida were also severely impacted by those

storms. The high winds and storm surge resulted in damage to

piers, historic structures, park facilities, staff residences, lodges,

cabins, vegetation, trails, wildlife species and coral reefs.

Though the parks are actively working to address damages from

the hurricanes, we are still undergoing natural resource damage

assessments. In some cases, the full and cumulative extent of damage and needed restoration costs will not be known until the additional damage assessments are completed.

In conclusion, we are deeply committed to protecting the places

in our care and ensuring quality visitor experiences for present and

future generations. We deeply appreciate the support parks have

received from you and from Congress. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. We will be happy to respond to any questions you or other Members may have.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Fields follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. First, what I would like to do is start with some

general—and we may followup with staff as far as particular dates

so we can have some comparison between the regions, but if you

could give us, by park in your zone, the full-time equivalent, the

FTEs of the employees you had in, I will say, 2000, 2003, 2005, but

the ideal thing will be to match up with what I’ve requested at

other hearings, so we may change those dates slightly.

Part of our challenge here is, Congress, basically, is making the

fundamental decision of how much we fund the Park Service, along

with each administration. But, we need to know what tradeoffs we

are making, and one of those things is to get a handle on what’s

happening in the staffing question.

A second part of that is, if you could show us the—I don’t know

how else to say this, but we can work with staff and your office,

the regular dollars you receive in the budget, in other words, what

is southeast, what are your 10 parks getting, is it increasing, declining, going with inflation? We are roughly doing 3 percent on the

Park Service, they are getting around 3, not counting the plus up

for the Everglades Project. And, we’ll have to figure out how we put

something like that back in, because clearly it’s coming into your

zone, but one of the fundamentals is, is it coming into your zone,

and how much of that comes out of your regular budget, how much

of that was actually new money, and the only way for us to tell

that is to get some kind of, what’s your baseline operations, and

then what do we put in when we add a unit? Because one of the

things we do all the time in Congress is we vote for a new heritage

area, we vote for a new park, we vote for an extension for a park,

without calculating or being told, quite frankly, what that means

in tradeoffs if we are not increasing the dollars by an equivalent

amount when we do that.

And, the only way we can do that for our report is get some of

the baseline data, so that then we can try to analyze and try to

tell region by region what tradeoffs we are making, because clearly

we have to make tradeoffs. We are making tradeoffs in Medicare.

We are making tradeoffs in Social Security, and child abuse support we are making tradeoffs, and what type of things, weapon systems and everything else, there’s some of that in the Park Service

too, but the goal of this report is to kind of document some of that

tradeoff that we don’t really—we haven’t really done an oversight

study on before. The tradeoffs have been done inside the administration.

Another broad question, have you had agents transferred out of

your parks for homeland security purposes, or do you tend to get

agents transferred to your zone?

Maybe each of the superintendents could come up, and if you

don’t have a district wide, maybe you could each say about your

three parks at least. Have you had—when homeland security pressures became kind of greatest after September 11th, and then in

not counting—I’m going to ask separate hurricane questions, if you

could start maybe with the Everglades.

Mr. KIMBALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I’m very pleased

to be here today, thank you for holding this hearing.

My understanding is that your different, Code Orange, Code Red,

whatever, that actually Everglades National Park, we did not perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\28170.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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manently transfer any rangers to homeland security or any other

Federal entity.

That being said, we did send rangers from Everglades to various

locations around the country to provide enhanced levels of security.

Mr. SOUDER. Is that happening on a regular, ongoing basis, or

that just happened right after September 11th?

Mr. KIMBALL. I think—that was before I got to Everglades, but

as far as I know there were certain—I would presume if we went

to an elevated code, a threat level, that, in fact, they would draw

upon Everglades law enforcement, fully commissioned law enforcement rangers, who would, in fact, then go to Washington or other

locations with the Park Service or other locations.

Mr. LEWIS. All of the parks were asked to provide law enforcement protection rangers, commissioned rangers, that were sent to

dams, to icon parks, to places both within and without of the National Park Service, and that lasted over a period of about a year

and a half or 2 years.

During that time, it was not uncommon for a park that, just say

as an example, may have had eight or nine law enforcement commission rangers on staff, may have two of those rangers out of the

park for a month at a time.

Mr. SOUDER. And, that happened at Key Biscayne, too?

Mr. LEWIS. I have been at Biscayne National Park for a total of

about 4 months, so I can’t answer your question directly. It did

occur at the park that I was at prior to this.

Mr. SOUDER. Which was?

Mr. LEWIS. Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, also in the

Southeast Region.

Ms. GUSTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’ve been at Big Cypress for about 8 months, and so I don’t know

exactly what the situation was at Big Cypress after September

11th, but prior to that I was at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

up on Lake Superior, and we had law enforcement commission

rangers that would rotate out to these icon parks, like the Archer,

Independence Dam recreation areas for a period of about 3 weeks,

and that did last for about year and a half to 2 years. And, we had

probably one person gone on a fairly regular basis during that time

from our current—from the staff that we had.

Mr. SOUDER. In any of your three parks, when we go to a higher

standard, are anything particular targets there that are increased?

Have you identified in your parks, yes, hydrology, water systems

are at risk and, therefore, you need to also put ranger protection

on those sites?

Mr. KIMBALL. I don’t believe Everglades or Dry Tortugas National Parks are identified as icon parks that would warrant additional security measures, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. GUSTIN. That would—same for Big Cypress.

Mr. LEWIS. And, the same for Biscayne National Park.

Mr. SOUDER. And, if you could check, we’ll let the record stand

that—what would be helpful, if you could each provide for the

record, so we can have a base here, how many law enforcement

rangers you have at your park, and if you can get some idea on the

standard how many were transferred, because one of the key questions here, is how do we—should there be a separate homeland seVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\28170.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
20

curity allocation given the icons and the Park Service, much like

we do with highways and the Park Service, because of demands in

the system that are put on the system?

Also, presumably, maybe Mr. Kimball you could say, what does

the law enforcement ranger do at the Everglades National Park?

Mr. KIMBALL. A wide range of activities, everything from standard law enforcement to patrolling our park road, to patrolling out

on Florida Bay looking for resource violations, in some cases dealing with resource issues, a full, wide range of things, perhaps,

meeting visitors and doing interpretation, and possibly responding

to an alert from a visitor that a python has been cited.

So, it’s fairly safe to say that while some things might be able

to be reduced in function, law enforcement rangers are not something that’s easily automated.

Mr. SOUDER. I’m sorry, easily automated?

Mr. KIMBALL. No.

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, as far as protecting panthers, protecting whether people are poaching, protecting campers, requires

a person.

Mr. KIMBALL. Yeah, they provide a full range of services for the

Park Service, and they have extensive training, and most of—a

large number of our law enforcement rangers, because of the distance from a hospital or emergency technicians, are medical technicians, EMTs.

Mr. SOUDER. So, when you have refugees come in to the Dry

Tortugas, are those law enforcement rangers that would handle

that?

Mr. KIMBALL. Yes. We do work with the U.S. Coast Guard and

Homeland Security. When they land at the fort, it’s really an allhands drill. I would be happy to explain the process, and we can

talk about that when we are going out to the fort on Friday, but

it is a security matter, it is a homeland security matter when they

arrive at the fort, dry foot, and at that point we maintain security

and either have the U.S. Coast Guard come and pick them up, or

we, in fact, bring our boat out some time to take them back to authorities in Key West.

Mr. SOUDER. So, roughly, how many law enforcement rangers do

you have?

Mr. KIMBALL. We have five law enforcement rangers at Dry

Tortugas National Park, with a total staff of 13.

Mr. SOUDER. And, Everglades?

Mr. KIMBALL. Law enforcement?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Mr. KIMBALL. We have a total of 28, and we have an allocation

of 33, so at this point we have five unfunded law enforcement rangers.

Mr. SOUDER. So, you are already down five to six, and if you had

the two of nine ratio you conceivably could have had as many as

six gone at the highest levels of elevation after September 11th

from Everglades, and possibly another one from Dry Tortugas.

Mr. KIMBALL. Possibly. We can go back and look to see how

many, in fact, what the draw was.

21

Mr. SOUDER. My question is that how—is it safe to say that your

pressures on law enforcement haven’t decreased at Everglades

Park?

Mr. KIMBALL. Our law enforcement needs assessment and our V

wrap shows a requirement of 52 law enforcement rangers. Obviously, we are not at that level. We are looking at a lot of other

ways of getting assistance, and I’d be happy to explain some of

those things that do provide assistance and additional law enforcement rangers with some additional sources of funding.

Mr. SOUDER. It would be very helpful if you could provide that

for the record.

Mr. KIMBALL. I’d be happy to.

Mr. SOUDER. So we would have that, because one of the questions is, when you are multi-tasked to protect increasing—in many

cases increasing numbers of visitors, plus the resources, plus the

wildlife, which would be part of the resources, and then rangers are

taken away, and if the demand is increasing, but the number of

people are reducing, the question is, what tradeoff are we making?

And, in fact, you know, what is the effect? Are visitors less safe?

Have you had a resource reduction, increase in poaching? What, in

fact, happens when we reduce that, or, in fact, have we overestimated the number of rangers we need? That’s the tradeoff.

Do either of you have any comments on the rangers and on your

resources, that discussion? Would you say that your law enforcement need has declined?

Mr. LEWIS. Our need has declined?

Mr. SOUDER. Yeah.

Ms. GUSTIN. The need?

Mr. LEWIS. I would not say that our need has declined. At Biscayne National Park, the park covers 173,000 acres, most of that

is over water. And, if we were at full staff with our protection staff

we would have seven people.

When you consider people being on blue days, and people being

on, you know, vacations every now and then, and training, that’s

pretty short staffed. Right now we’ve got five positions, two of those

that are filled, two of those positions are not filled, and we are in

the process of trying to fill those now.

Mr. SOUDER. Are your positions law enforcement mostly focused

on protecting coral or wildlife, or on people who are there?

Mr. LEWIS. Quite honestly, we spend most of our time right now

dealing with people. We find it difficult to really get out on the

reefs, where we would like to be. One of the reasons that the park

was established, of course, was because of the beautiful coral reefs

which make up about 33 miles of the park. We spend so much time

dealing with people issues that we don’t get out and spend a lot

of time on resource protection.

Now, we do have other staff members who are not commissioned

rangers, who do spend time doing resource management programs,

archeological programs, and things of that nature, but to answer

your question, we are not over staffed.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Gustin, we stopped coming across from the

west side at the visitor center on Big Cypress a few hours ago.

Ms. GUSTIN. Right, good.

22

Mr. SOUDER. Are those—that’s comparatively new in the system,

visitor center?

Ms. GUSTIN. The Oasis Visitor Center?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Ms. GUSTIN. No, that’s been around for quite a while.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. Now, what about, have you expanded facilities

there? Are you getting more visitors? How is Big Cypress evolving?

Ms. GUSTIN. Right. We have a permanent law enforcement staff

currently of about eight law enforcement rangers. That includes

our chief ranger who is the program manager for the division. And

then, we have three unfunded positions.

And, similar to Everglades and Biscayne, our rangers do a wide

variety of functions, from road patrol, to campground patrol, to

wildlife violations, and spend a lot of time dealing with people, of

course.

And, to answer your first question, I would not say our need is

decreasing. We get about a half a million visitors a year into Big

Cypress, and our total acres is 730,000 acres. Out of those 730,000

acres, we have approximately 150,000 that are part of a new part

of the park called the Addition, that was acquired in 1988, and that

will offer us a new challenge as far as managing from a resource

protection and law enforcement standpoint is concerned.

So, our needs are increasing, I think probably every park would

say the same.

Mr. SOUDER. OK.

Before following up with some more questions I’ll yield to my colleague.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, all of you, for being here today.

I had a few questions. Regarding the Coral Reef Restoration

Project at Biscayne National Park, Ms. Fields’ testimony says, ‘‘Although many different technologies for coral reef restoration have

been tried, success has been meager and difficult to quantify. The

inability to satisfactorily restore damaged coral reefs is due in large

part to limited understanding of coral reef ecology.’’ I wanted to get

more background about why we would have such limited understanding. It seems that so much has been written, and explored

and studied about coral reef, our understanding of coral reef ecology. What knowledge do we need that would——

Mr. LEWIS. I am guessing Sherri wants me to field this one.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Do we need a Jacques Gusteau?

Mr. LEWIS. An example, coral bleaching is an event that’s been

taking place over the last 10 to 12 years at an increased rate. We

don’t know why it occurs. We’ve got a lot of antidotal evidence of

some of the characteristics of the sea that are occurring when coral

bleaching occurs, but we honestly don’t know. It’s probably some

combination of related to temperature, of ultra violet radiation, of,

you know, a number of different things, pollution.

We do know, and I know you are an avid water enthusiast, you

may have been in the water over the reefs in the park. You can

swim along and there will be reef sections that are absolutely gorgeous, beautiful, and then right beside it there will be a piece of

reef that’s just bleached out white. It might have a shell sitting on

23

top of a piece of brain coral and you pick up that shell and what

had been shielded from the sunlight isn’t bleached out.

There’s just, to be honest with you, yeah, there has been a lot

of study going on over the last 50 years about reefs, but there’s just

so much that we don’t understand. Part of our process, or one of

our programs of revitalizing damaged reef areas, includes going out

when there’s been a grounding and we have reef damaged and destroyed, going out and actually picking up pieces of reef that are

very small, that probably would never grow again, and we take

them into a nursery and we’re trying to grow them so that we can

actually use those pieces once they’ve grown larger to restore other

damaged areas.

So, we are doing a number of different things, but we have not

had a great deal of success, quite honestly.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you.

We have such a great educational facility in the University of

Miami Rosenstiel School. Does the Park Service partner with any

educational institutions to try to get that background, because I

know it is here in Ms. Fields’ testimony about the hurricane damage. She says, ‘‘Our limited understanding of the underwater environment forces us to rely on natural processes for the vast majority

of recovery processes within the reef tracks.’’ So again, that lack of

understanding, there are great educational facilities.

Mr. LEWIS. We have a number of relationships with the universities, with NOAA, their National Marine Fisheries Section, with

different Park Service units, with the Coral Reef Task Force. We’ve

got relationships with tons of people, we truly do, and all of us are

working together to try to come to grips on this, and be able to be

more effective in our Resource Restoration Projects.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

On the issue of hurricanes, and the impact that it’s had on so

many of our parks, Biscayne National Park, Ms. Fields’ testimony

said, ‘‘Although trails have now been reopened, salt spray from the

storms has killed much of the leafy cover, slowing recovery.’’ When

do you expect full recovery, if at all, from this devastating season,

and what can we expect from the next hurricane season, and is

there anything that the National Park Service can do to protect

these habitats from future wreckage?

Mr. LEWIS. One of the challenges that we face is finding funding

sources to do the type of monitoring that we want to do and need

to do to. I mean, we can go out to Elliott Key, you can go out to

Elliott Key tomorrow, and if you walk on our ocean-side boardwalk,

well, first of all, you won’t be able to, walk on the trail because the

boardwalk is not there anymore from the hurricane, but you’ll see

a great number, a great percentage of the vegetation out on the island is turning brown, and grey, and the leaves are going to drop.

What the degree of chill is going to be, we don’t know, so we are

in the process of doing monitoring, but we are also in the process

of hunting for the funding to enable us to do that better.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, and just one more. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman, for the time. In Ms. Fields’ testimony she says, ‘‘Everglades’ damage was most severe in the Flamingo area, the lodge

and cabins at Flamingo sustained significant damage and are not

in habitable condition. Efforts are underway to reopen portions of

24

Flamingo for day use visitor services and to allow front and back

cut-through camping this season.’’ And, what are these efforts, and

what is in line to fully—what is the time line to fully open the

lodge?

Mr. KIMBALL. We are going on a step-by-step process at Flamingo. You’ve read accounts, we got hit by Katrina in August, and

then on October 24th we got hit by Wilma, again, with severe

winds, and in the case of the first, with Katrina we had a storm

surge in the 3 to 4 foot range, and with Wilma we not only had

the winds, we also had a storm surge up to 6, 7, 8 feet in places,

including a Florida Bay marl mud that covered pretty much all of

Flamingo.

We have, I understand from our facility manager that just as of

yesterday we’ve got full power back to Flamingo. Our process there

is to, as I said, go step by step. The first order of business is getting day use operations in place. We’ve had the White Water Bay

open, where boats could launch and go up the Buttonwood Canal

and go to the north.

We have a problem with the Florida Bay Marina. We have an

area that at low tide is as little as 6 inches of water, so we have

scoped out a dredging project, which we have scoped out and are

ready to go ahead with. And, we are also working with the concessionaire in terms of a day use operation to open up the marina

store, and also to provide fuel.

The pumps were inundated with Katrina. Luckily, we did not replace them quickly, because they also got inundated with Wilma,

but they are going to have to be replaced, and it’s a very intricate

permitting process to get pumps that are right on a sea wall.

So, we are trying to get our day use operations up as soon as possible, also open the camp ground.

Now, the question on Flamingo is a more complicated one. I’m

sure you’ve seen some of the articles in the paper. I want to make

it real clear, we have not made any decisions on closing, and you

probably saw statements from Fran Mainella, our director, we are

still going through the process. At this point, we are going to be

looking at a lot of different alternatives. We have leadership coming from Washington and Atlanta to visit the park in February to

start to look at a process to develop a plan for Flamingo.

Flamingo, at this point, is in our General Management Plan,

which is going to be completed in 2009. We’ve made a decision to

carefully look at pulling Flamingo out of the plan and doing a fast

track, a site plan, to evaluate exactly what Flamingo should look

like.

I think we all know that Flamingo, it is our only overnight accommodations in Everglades National Park. I’ve heard others say,

and I’ll use it here, it’s part of the fabric of Everglades National

Park, so I think we’ll proceed that way in terms of looking at exactly what Flamingo should look like.

We are very concerned about reconstructing as is, because the

development is at grade. At points it’s just 3 feet above sea level.

It does not comply with the Monroe County Code, and as one of our

employees said in a newspaper interview, ‘‘It’s throwing good

money after bad.’’ We are thinking if we are going to develop a facility down there it should be hurricane resistant on the second

25

floor type development, but as you know, by developing things on

a—building things on a second floor are very expensive.

So, we are looking and exploring the opportunities to possibly

enter into a joint venture with a private interest, and the National

Park Service, and we’ve also gotten many, many phone calls in the

last month of private individuals in the south Dade area, and also

across the country, that are very interested in contributing their

own funds to rebuild Flamingo.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, just one last question. Thank you for your time.

Out of Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park, Big

Cypress, and Dry Tortugas National Park, what areas in those

parks are currently closed to the public; which areas that are now

closed will be open to the public; and are there any areas that will

not be opened to the public ever because of the fragility of the

area?

Mr. KIMBALL. Are you saying—asking because of the hurricane?

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. No, just in general, just so that, I have the

philosophy, and I hope that the Park Service does too, that parks

are to be enjoyed by the public, and not be that fussy librarian that

doesn’t want to get that book out of the shelf and get it out of

order.

Mr. KIMBALL. Right.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And, I hope that you believe that the parks

should be enjoyed as well, and I’m wondering if that is your philosophy, and are there any areas that are currently closed that will

be open? Are there some areas that because of the nature of the

ecology they would suffer as a result of contact with man, and will

remain closed to the public?

Mr. KIMBALL. If I might, we are dealing with a number of these

issues in our General Management Plan. There are some very, very

limited areas within Everglades National Park that are closed,

principally for protection of sensitive wildlife species, particularly,

on the Keys. There are certain areas in Dry Tortugas National

Park, because of the incredible bird assemblage in the park, that

are, in fact, closed to visitor use, but they are basically sensitive

wildlife areas.

Everglades is a very large place, 1.5 million acres, almost 1.4

million of that is wilderness area, but there are very few areas that

are closed. There are some areas right now, because of the hurricanes, that we do not permit, day use is permitted, but overnight

use is not permitted, because we have lost porta-potties, for example.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. That’s not related to the hurricane, so tell

me that again.

Mr. KIMBALL. There are some keys, we’d be happy to get you a

list. We have—there are some keys in Florida bay, for example,

that are, in fact, closed because of sensitive wildlife areas, and we’d

be happy to get those to you.

In many cases, those have been closed for quite some time. There

is a new area, called Carl Ross Key, that was, in fact, recently

closed because of hurricanes and effects on the Rosset Spoon Belt.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

26

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks.

I wanted to followup a little further on the Flamingo Lodge area.

Has it been hit by previous hurricanes? I mean, to get hit twice

here, is that extremely unusual, never before?

Mr. KIMBALL. There is a history of hurricanes at Flamingo. I

think the last major hurricane that hit there, and I’m pretty new

down here, I guess——

Mr. SOUDER. You can provide it for the record.

Mr. KIMBALL [continuing]. We’d be happy to do that, in 1960

Hurricane Donna hit it very hard and had a storm surge that I

think was as much as 10 feet.

Mr. SOUDER. Because it would be good to see the history of this

in kind of a risk assessment question.

Flamingo Lodge, having only been there a number of years ago,

is not kind of one of the—it’s part of the fabric of the system, and

the only place you can stay, but it was not necessarily the model

of visitation services.

Mr. KIMBALL. Correct.

Mr. SOUDER. Maybe a model for the mosquito repellant people.

And, it had, arguably, one of the worst visitor centers I’ve ever

visited in the entire National Park Service.

Now, there were already plans underway, 4 or 5 years ago, to

look at addressing the question of Flamingo Lodge and the visitor

center. Was there a timetable that’s now been adjusted, or where

were we at in that process before these hurricanes hit?

Mr. KIMBALL. Mr. Chairman, there was a site plan that was developed in the late 1990’s. The sense was that we, I guess 3 years

ago, started a General Management Plan process, and Flamingo

would be considered in that General Management Plan, and a lot

of the issues that you just brought up were going to be considered,

in a general way, in the General Management Plan, but then

would be followed up with a development concept plan and a site

plan.

Mr. SOUDER. Did the hurricanes hit Big Cypress or Biscayne?

Did it do much damage in your parks as well?

Ms. GUSTIN. Yeah. One advantage I have is, I’m on the west side

of Florida, so I don’t get hit quite as often as Biscayne and Everglades do, but Wilma did do a number to Big Cypress.

And, the majority of our damage was done in the back country.

It was very widespread, and we had significant damage to vegetation, with downed trees over hundreds of miles of trails, that took

about 6 to 8 weeks to actually clear and open to the public.

And, we had roof damage to buildings, and utility systems damaged, as well as communication problems, for a good 3 to 4 weeks

after she hit us.

And so, it was very widespread, very spread out, so we didn’t

have a focal point like Flamingo, fortunately, but we had a lot of

very widespread damage throughout the whole preserve.

Mr. LEWIS. And, Biscayne National Park, again, much more fortunate than Everglades National Park, we did have extensive damage to vegetation. We had parts of roofs that were lost. We had

screened rooms that were lost. We had damage to boardwalks. We

had damage to the boating docks where we tie up our government

boats.

27

All in all, we were somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million

worth of damages, which is a whole lot better than some parks

have been.

Mr. SOUDER. And, could you provide for the record if there’s any

history in the past of how frequently this occurred since 1960?

Mr. LEWIS. Hurricane Andrew did a huge number, of course, on

the homestead, South Dade County, back in 1992, and did a huge

number on Biscayne National Park at the same time.

This year has been the first year of any real significance since

Andrew.

Mr. SOUDER. Let me ask Mr. Kimball, and it would also relate

somewhat to Big Cypress, in Louisiana there’s been a gradual

change with the channeling and increase in brackish water, and

less protection for the city of New Orleans, and this was an issue

multiple years prior to Katrina. Is that happening in the Everglades, do you see the sea water moving into the system, and what

is that doing in the hydrology mix in the park, and how this might

even relate directly to the Flamingo area?

Mr. KIMBALL. We’ve been monitoring increases in sea level in

Florida Bay, and we’ve gone to the Rosenstiel School of Marine

Sciences and other places, and what the scientists tell us is that

we could be looking at as much as a foot of sea level rise in Florida

Bay over the next 100 years. Now, I realize there are some projections that are above that, some projections are below that, we are

using that as a planning number, and it really has an effect on

kind of what kind of infrastructure we are looking at, particularly,

in the Flamingo area.

Mr. SOUDER. Can you see that you are losing feet per year now

with the small rises, because in Louisiana they were dredging and

diking, and trying to preserve the bayous and the fish and wildlife

areas already, prior to Katrina.

Mr. LEWIS. We are seeing some changes down there. I can’t say

that it’s directly related to this sea level rise that we’ve been hearing about.

Mr. SOUDER. May I ask you about your boats. One thing that’s

really apparent when you come across, it’s one of the constant

questions we have, visitation, and then in-holdings, and Native

American groups, are most operations licensed? Can you explain a

little bit to me how Florida differs with—clearly, many of them

were Native American, both at Big Cypress, I think more probably

than Everglades, but between the two of you could you deal with

that question?

Ms. GUSTIN. I’ll go.

Mr. SOUDER. Sure.

Ms. GUSTIN. We do have commercial air boat operations outside

of Big Cypress, predominantly, by the public. We are currently

going through what we call a Commercial Services Plan to evaluate

the need for commercial services at Big Cypress, which could potentially include air boats.

Right now, we do not have any licensed or permitted commercial

air boat operations in Big Cypress. Now, we do have private air

boat operations, but not commercial.

We plan on having those commercial services——

28

Mr. SOUDER. What do you mean by the difference between private and commercial?

Ms. GUSTIN. If you had an air boat and wanted to come to Big

Cypress, you could go do it.

Mr. SOUDER. It would be like horseback riding or something.

Ms. GUSTIN. Right.

If you had a business and wanted to conduct——

Mr. SOUDER. If you can horseback ride in Big Cypress.

Ms. GUSTIN. You can.

Mr. SOUDER. OK.

Ms. GUSTIN. If you had a commercial air boat service that you

wanted to charge people for, currently we do not have that type of

service in Big Cypress.

Mr. SOUDER. So, the ones that you see advertised along the

way——

Ms. GUSTIN. Those are all outside the boundary of Big Cypress.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. At the east/west boundaries?

Ms. GUSTIN. Yes, the west boundary we have a couple of big operators, and on the east side we have about four, well, we don’t,

on the east side there are about four or five big operators.

Mr. SOUDER. And, they can’t go in to the National Preserve?

Ms. GUSTIN. On a commercial basis, no, but private individuals

can operate air boats in certain sections of Big Cypress.

Mr. KIMBALL. In Everglades National Park, air boating is permitted in one area, the area that Ms. Fields talked about, the East

Everglades, the 109,000 that was brought into the park in 1989.

There are two forms of—use can take two forms, one are private

air boaters, and the law says that private air boaters who are, in

fact, air boating in the East Everglades on January 1, 1989 can

continue for their lifetime. OK, it’s a life estate.

In terms of commercial air boat tour operations, the 1989 act

says that if you had a commercial air boat tour operation on that

date, in January 1989, you can continue your operation, and the

Secretary of the Interior is authorized to enter into concession contracts with those operators.

We are in the process, right now they are operating, our best information is there’s about 300,000 visitors that are coming into Everglades National Park. They are operating, they do own private

land there, they are right along Tamiami Trail, you’ve probably

seen them, they are operating within the park. They do not have

any kind of incidental business use permit or a commercial use authorization.

At this point, we are in the process of going through an interim

concession contract process. In fact, we are doing an environmental

assessment to get them under some form of concession contract.

Now, that being said, we are also looking within our General

Management Plan about the appropriateness of commercial air

boat tour operations in the East Everglades area of Everglades National Park within the GMP, and we’ll be making a decision about

that 2008–2009 period.

Mr. SOUDER. Do any of your parks collect demonstration fees?

Mr. KIMBALL. Yes.

Ms. GUSTIN. Yes.

29

Mr. SOUDER. And, how do you do that, at the Flamingo area in

Everglades?

Mr. KIMBALL. We collect fees at our entrance station, just west

of Homestead, and also at the Shark Valley, we have a tram operation that collects fees there.

Mr. LEWIS. At Biscayne National Park, the only fees we collect

are our camping fees at our two camp grounds.

Ms. GUSTIN. And, we have two camp grounds that we currently

collect fees for at Big Cypress.

Mr. SOUDER. And, at Everglades, what percentage of the people

would you say coming into the park pay a fee?

Mr. KIMBALL. That is hard for us to estimate at this point. Our

visitation is 1.2 million visitors. Actually, in the mid 1970’s it was

1.7. It’s gone down significantly. We are looking at why that’s happened.

We are in the process of figuring out exactly different ways of

counting visitors, for example, we get a considerable amount of use

on Florida Bay, we do not count operators or visitors to Florida

Bay.

I guess, Mr. Chairman, I can look into it and talk to some of our

staff, in terms of exactly what percentage that 1.2 million represents in terms of total visitation to Everglades National Park.

Mr. SOUDER. 1.2 million are the number of people who paid the

fee?

Mr. KIMBALL. That’s correct, the ones that come through our entrance stations at Shark Valley and at our main entrance west of

Homestead.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you have an idea of how many of those are regional within 100 miles?

Mr. KIMBALL. I don’t know if we’ve done a survey of visitors. I’d

certainly be happy to look into that.

Mr. SOUDER. If you have any data on that, that would be helpful,

in either of your parks, too, because this is an interesting question

as we look at where the points on these demonstration fees are,

what usage mix, as we try to find a way for low-income families

to have it covered.

Mr. KIMBALL. We do have many, many foreign visitors to Everglades National Park.

Mr. SOUDER. One thing I meant to ask on the hurricanes, you

were referring to the two that came up to Everglades, I believe you

said there have been eight that have hit Dry Tortugas?

Mr. KIMBALL. Uh-huh, some peripherally, some glancing blows,

others direct hits, like Charlie in 1984—2004, excuse me.

Mr. SOUDER. Is that a typical pattern that as many as three to

four times as many will hit that park system?

Mr. KIMBALL. No, I think everything we see from the National

Hurricane Center is that we are going into a pattern of increased

frequency and possibly intensity of hurricanes, and I think we are

all watching Max Mayfield at the Hurricane Center to see what he

has to say about that, but he, basically says we are moving into

kind of a natural, the natural cycle of increased, a pattern of increased frequency of hurricanes.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Fields, between you and Mr. Kimball, can

you—I know he’s a hydrology expert, but could you talk to me a

30

little bit about water? You mentioned in your testimony the

amount of dollars that Congress has put in, the long-term plan for

billions. Where would you say we are on that plan? Does the Park

Service have a fixed amount that’s dedicated to this in your annual

planning? Are we ahead or behind that schedule?

Obviously, I know there’s been huge debates about whether the

original plan was the best plan, how it should be changed, and

those things have huge impacts on this, and there’s a hot political

development issue in Florida as well. But, could you kind of tell me

from the Park Service perspective. Where do you think we are on

the restoration question and funding cycle?

Ms. FIELDS. Is this related to CERP?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, basically.

Ms. FIELDS. Yeah, I will defer to Mr. Kimball on that.

Mr. KIMBALL. You just mentioned—I’m so glad you brought up

the issue of south Florida ecosystem restoration, because it’s so important to the health and vibrancy of Everglades National Park.

The most important project for Everglades National Park is the

Modified Water Deliveries Project. It is not a CERP project. It was

authorized in 1989 by the same act that created the east Everglades area of the park.

We have been working with the Corps of Engineers for some 16

years to get this project in place, and I think over the last couple

years we’ve made some great progress, in terms of the 81⁄2 square

mile area, an area that was built to the west of the protective levy,

in terms of providing flood protection to that area.

We’ve also worked hard with our partners, including the State of

Florida and the Corps of Engineers, in terms of identifying exactly

what should happen on Tamiami Trail. In fact, there’s a general reevaluation report and a final EIS that’s being considered by the

Corps of Engineers right now in Washington, in fact, this week.

That is, as I said, the most critical project to Everglades, the restoration of flows to Everglades National Park.

Going to your question in terms of funding, the project now has

had quite a history. It is now a $400 million project, and with funding in 2006, with an additional $60 million, we are now—we funded, with the help of Congress, $250 million events, so we still have

$150 million to go, but I would say for the record we have made

incredible progress. We are zeroing in on a project that we hope

will be completed in 2009.

In terms of the other—there are a number of other foundational

projects for CERP, the C–111 project that’s advancing with the detention areas along the eastern boundary of the park, to keep, as

we bring water in from the north to provide a hydrologic barrier

to keep this water in the park. There are also the 68 CERP

projects, Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan projects, and

I think you probably know that the State of Florida has advanced

a number of projects that they call Accelerate. I’m very supportive

of those projects. It’s with State money, and they are moving forward with those projects.

Everglades National Park was fortunate to get over, I think the

total is close to $9 million, to fund 40 positions in our science program, to carefully look at those projects, to look at assurances and

performance measures.

31

We are also carefully looking at those Accelerate projects, to

make sure that they deliver the environmental benefits that we expect in the park. So, I think we are making some great headway.

We have a long ways to go. You know this is a 35 year effort, but

I think we are making some wonderful progress.

Mr. SOUDER. Is Big Cypress at all involved in this?

Ms. GUSTIN. Yeah, we have a much smaller number of projects

going, between three and six different projects, that are related to

resource monitoring, specific to water quality and vegetation, but

we are involved in the process.

Mr. LEWIS. As is, Biscayne National Park, a lot of people don’t

realize just how essential the flow, the restoration of fresh water

flow into Biscayne Bay is. Biscayne Bay is very dependent on an

appropriate mix of fresh water and salt water, and over the last 20

or 30 years there has been a greatly reduced flow of fresh water

into the bay. And, our hopes are that the restoration project, when

finished, will help restore the Biscayne Bay to much more like it

was 50 and 60 years ago.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Do you have any additional questions?

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Yes, thank you.

I wanted to get your comments about the publication put out by

the National Parks Conservation Association. I’ve been proud to

work with them for a number of years, and they point out, ‘‘Additional rangers are needed in marine parks, such as Dry Tortugas

and Biscayne in Florida, to prevent illegal fishing and coral poaching, and enforce boating safety and navigation laws. In 2002, National Park Service Director Fran Mainella told Congress that

poaching, over fishing, improper fishing, boating and diving practices were among the activities that contribute to degradation of

some of the fragile marine ecosystems.’’

How have you been working with the organizations like the National Parks Conservation Association to make sure that the illegal

fishing and coral poaching is a little more under control?

Mr. LEWIS. I’ll take a stab at this one.

We’ve been working pretty closely with National Parks and Conservation—National Parks and Conservation——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Association.

Mr. LEWIS [continuing]. Association, thank you, in analyzing the

threat that the park faces and in posing potential resolutions of

those threats.

We’ve also been working pretty diligently with the State Fish

and Wildlife Conservation Commission in developing a fisheries

management plan that will help us both deal with fishing pressures and with boating pressures.

We have worked with groups like the South Florida Trust, which

is an associate of the National Parks Foundation, in publishing

educational materials in different languages, in Spanish, and Creole, as well as in English, on safe boating.

We are in the process, as we speak, of working on a mooring

buoy program, to expand, hopefully, we will expand the program in

the park.

32

So, we are working with a number of different agencies and private organizations, in a variety of different ways to protect the resources.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. KIMBALL. We have been working with NPCA in really two

ways. One is, you may have seen it, they recently did a State of

Florida Bay Report, that I thought was an excellent report, that

laid out the challenges we face in Florida Bay, just not only from

a resource standpoint, but from an impact standpoint in terms of

making sure that boaters understand how complicated and sensitive the resource is out there. So, we’ve really been working with

them on the State of Florida Bay Report, that I think provides a

great platform as we move forward.

A more tangible effort we’ve engaged in with NPCA, NPCA was

able to hook up with an anonymous donor, and they made a donation to the park, a handsome donation I might add, where we were

able to hire a number of law enforcement rangers, also get some

better boats, and also some better educational material, and also

an education coordinator that will directly help us in our management of Florida Bay.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you.

And, in reason No. 7 that the Association gives to invest in our

national parks, they talk about invasive species that are overrunning our parks, and they cite the Everglades National Park, in

that park non-native boa constrictors and Burmese pythons have

invaded the waterways, invasive melaluca, Australian pine, Brazilian pepper plants are overtaking native mangroves in Cypress,

while fishermen lament the decline of native large mouth bass

which are losing nesting habits to exotic fish from Africa. How

much headway have we made with these invasive species that are

overrunning the Park Service?

Mr. KIMBALL. If you think about Everglades ecosystem restoration, I look at it is kind of three pillars. One pillar is getting the

water, with quantity, quality, time and distribution. Another one is

making sure the habitat is right, to make sure that we take care

of the exotics, whether they be vegetation or aquatic species. And,

the third pillar is compatibility with the built environment, in

other words, we know we need to restore Everglades, but we need

to make sure that the Everglades restoration provides for necessary flood protection and water supply for our neighbors, and

that’s a very important part of it.

If I can go back to that second pillar, we have quite a robust program within Everglades National Park, and as Ms. Fields talked

about in her introductory remarks, working with the State of Florida, and with some exotic plant management team that works

within the region, to start to get a handle on this problem. We

worked very hard, in terms of Brazilian pepper, and melaluca, and

Australian pine, and we are making good headway.

We also have a project in the park called Hole in the Donut,

that’s 6,200 acres of Brazilian pepper, and we’ve been working with

Miami Dade County and the National Park Foundation to figure

out ways, we’ve actually removed Brazilian pepper off 4,200 acres

of that.

So, we are chipping away at the problem.

33

In terms of some of the exotic animals, I’m sure many of you

have seen the pictures that seem to be everywhere about the

pythons that we are dealing with in Everglades National Park.

We’ve worked on, we’re working on a number of programs there,

one of which is kind of a don’t let it loose campaign, to let people

know when they buy a python that they ought to think about ultimately if they can keep it in their aquarium forever. I don’t know

if there’s a python rescue around, but we are working on that.

We are also trying to learn more about where they go in the

park. We don’t know very much about pythons. We know they like

to hang out on canals, on levees, but we are trying to right now

find out where they go so we can do a trapping program, and ultimately try to eradicate pythons from Everglades National Park.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you.

Ms. GUSTIN. May I add something regarding exotics?

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Yes, thank you.

Ms. GUSTIN. I think we deal with the same species that Everglades does, as far as trying to eradicate Brazilian pepper and

melaluca, etc. Related to the hurricane, though, because this hurricane was so strong, it destroyed or heavily impacted a lot of the

hardwood hammock areas, and really opened up a lot of vegetation

areas that were previously closed or had a higher level of a canopy.

And, the thought is that, this year and next year it will take a

while for those canopy areas, or those vegetative areas, to recover,

and they will be a prime ground for exotics to start landing and

spreading their seeds and growing.

So, related to the hurricane, it’s going to be a year or two before

we really do understand the impact of the hurricane on the spread

of exotics. So, that’s a concern from a natural resource perspective.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Well, Mark and I consider liberals to be

invasive species, and we haven’t figured out a way to get rid of

them either.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I was going to say, enough news stories about

pythons may explain your drop in visitation, if you get enough of

that.

Mr. LEWIS. We’ll look into a regression equation for that.

Mr. SOUDER. Are there, I believe it was out in Utah, cottonwoods,

are any of these particular invasive species water suckers, in other

words, take a disproportionate of water compared to others that are

also altering the water balance, and do you target that first, given

the nature of your parks?

Mr. LEWIS. That’s why the Melaluca plant was planted here, was

to drain the Everglades, to suck up the water out of the Everglades, and one of the reasons it’s such a huge problem here is because it does such up a tremendous amount of water that would

otherwise be available for other natural resources.

Mr. SOUDER. Does that become a target when you are prioritizing

invasive species because of that?

Ms. GUSTIN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. I wanted to ask one followup question on the large

donation you said you had to the park. Did that come through an

Everglades foundation that you have?

34

Mr. KIMBALL. Yes, it actually was a donation through the South

Florida National Parks Trust, which is an affiliate group of the National Park Foundation. It’s a group that was established about 3

years ago, to assist Everglades National Park with both fundraising and friend raising here in south Florida.

Mr. SOUDER. So, it does, not only functions like types of things,

like nature conservancy, where they may buy a piece of land to preserve transfer over, it also does operating?

Mr. KIMBALL. It does not, it does not function as a land trust.

They do not hold land. They raise money, assist the park, as I said,

in friend raising, but then also go out and do fundraising activities

to assist the park.

Mr. SOUDER. The best example that we’ve had thus far is Friends

of Acadia, the Rockefeller’s built, they bought the trail system, and

also gave them a donation to operate that. Have you had—what

was unusual, and what I heard you say was, is it actually helped

pay for rangers.

Mr. KIMBALL. That’s correct.

Mr. SOUDER. Which is one of the concerns we’ve had, is that if

the Park Service doesn’t adequately fund many donors don’t want

to get into covering operating things that they think the taxpayers

ought to be operating. You’ve kind of hinted that was a cross zone

thing. I’m interested in a little bit more information on that.

Mr. KIMBALL. This particular donor was specifically concerned

about putting rangers on the water, law enforcement rangers, to

make contacts with fishermen and others that are using Florida

Bay to enforce a wide range of regulations at the park.

And, as I understand, this is the first time that a donor specifically wanted to support a law enforcement function in a national

park.

Mr. SOUDER. And, was there a trust set up to pay for that long

term? Was that like a 2-year funding project? How does that work?

Mr. KIMBALL. We received the first year funding, we are hoping

on the second, and we’re told that if we perform that there would

hopefully be a third.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Each one of these hearing books, each one of these hearings will

be an actual little book on that region. Is there anything you want

to add here at the close, and we may add a few followup things for

that, as well. I want to have a little more in depth on the coral

question, because that’s unique to your area, also how the water

systems and the coral impact the whole Keys structure, southeast

Florida and southern Florida, because that’s something we won’t

face anywhere else, just like out in Hawaii with the volcanos the

day before we held our hearing, the park fell into the ocean. It was,

what, like 45 acres, I think, fell into the ocean with the visitor station and everything else, and we don’t have that problem in a lot

of parks either, and trying to figure out the regional challenges.

One here is that your whole coral structure of the Keys and the

water interrelationship is very unique at this scale, and it would

be helpful to get some of that, anything you would think that if

somebody picks this book up and says, here’s what is unique about

this section of the country in the Park Service, and we have a chalVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\28170.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
35

lenge, help us fill out a little bit the documents we put in and other

info.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Mr. LEWIS. What I would like to do, if it would meet your purposes, would be to provide a short summary of the knowledge of

the resources and the threats facing the resources, and we would

provide that to the committee.

Mr. SOUDER. That would be very helpful.

Mr. LEWIS. OK.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your participation. I appreciate you coming out today and fielding the questions, and we’ll

be following up through Ms. Fields and the individual parks.

Thank you very much.

Ms. GUSTIN. Thank you.

Mr. KIMBALL. Thank you.

Mr. KIMBALL. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. The second panel, if you could come forward, is Nathaniel Reed, Member of the National Council for NPCA, the National Parks Conservation Association, and Dexter Lehtinen, senior

member of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force.

Mr. REED. How would you like to handle this, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. SOUDER. I need to swear you both in first. If you’d each raise

your right hand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of our witnesses responded in the affirmative.

Thank you very much for being here today. NPCA has been critical in helping us talk through this hearing and have been very

helpful in providing data. Your full statement will be inserted in

the record, feel free to go through as much of this as you want.

STATEMENTS OF NATHANIEL REED, MEMBER OF NATIONAL

COUNCIL, NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION;

AND DEXTER LEHTINEN, SENIOR MEMBER, SOUTH FLORIDA

ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION TASK FORCE

STATEMENT OF NATHANIEL REED

Mr. REED. Mr. Chairman, I am really pleased that you are here,

and I’m simply delighted that Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen is

here as well.

I want to take a moment aside, we are in a building that has a

great attachment to me. My uncle, my mother’s brother, was one

of the founders of Pan American World Airlines, and this building,

this room, was headquarters of Pan Am in the 1920’s and became

a vital part of Pan American World Airlines in 1933, with the advent of the aircraft that is somewhere on the wall, right up there,

the first Martin Aircraft. And from just outside these doors the

Amphibius flew to Cuba, the Carribean, and later to Central and

South America, right from here. This was the headquarters, and

this is where the passengers came and embarked on the airplane.

That’s such a short time ago, relatively, and think what it is we

now fly all over the world.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks, it is a great, it’s a wonderful building.

Mr. REED. It’s just a marvelous feeling.

36

I want to say how pleased I am that the three superintendents

were here, and I want you to know that they are three of our most

distinguished members of the National Park Service team. We are

really fortunate that Fran has sent us three really exceptional

human beings and managers.

I want to introduce somebody, Lloyd Miller, sitting beside me.

Lloyd Miller’s career has been extraordinary, in the sense that he

opposed, he formed a group opposed to building a huge petro chemical concern on the banks of Biscayne Bay, led with Dante Fascell

the effort to make Biscayne Bay first a National Preserve, and then

in the Nixon years we made it into, extended its boundaries and

it became a National Park. He opposed, when I was Secretary of

the Department of Environmental Regulation, Florida Power &

Light’s plans to build a huge nuclear power plant, which was built,

but they were going to put their effluent, their heated effluent, in

the Bay and boil the bay. And, I challenged that, refused to give

that permit.

I’m going to go back to my text now, Mr. Chairman.

I had the honor and privilege of serving six Florida Governors in

a variety of positions, including Environmental Advisor and Founder of what is now known as the Department of Environmental Protection. I had the rare opportunity to serve as the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and National

Parks, from 1971 to 1977. During this period, the National Park

Service and the Park System was one of my main fascinations and

challenges.

I have been a member of the Board of Trustees of the National

Park and Conservation Association, and I am currently a member

of the NPCA’s National Council.

As you know, since 1919, the non-partisan National Parks and

Conservation Association has been the leading voice of the American people in protecting and enhancing our National Park System

for present and future generations. Today, we have 300,000 members nationwide, who visit and care deeply about the future of our

national parks.

My fascinations with the Park System, the system is unique in

the world. I have visited the great East and South African Park

Systems that are famous for the magic of great animal herds and

the diversity of habitats, but I have witnessed extraordinary wildlife and breathtaking scenery in America’s national parks, but

wildlife and scenic majesty are but a small part of our National

Park System. We have preserved as a Nation the best of our history, the system is unique, there is no other like it.

In a recent poll of American adults by Harris Interactive, the National Park Service was rated the most popular of all government

agencies and services. It is an example of the mis-aligned priorities

in Washington that we are consistently struggling to protect this

goldmine from a lack of proper funding and adequate staffing levels, political gamesmanship, and, frankly, absent congressional

oversight, ultimately driving out talented and experienced staff.

Your oversight is long overdue. The problems of the national

parks and the National Park Service have been growing unchecked

for too long.

37

This fall I visited Liberty Island and Ellis Island, and it reminded me of when then Director George Hartsog and I had visited

Ellis Island together in 1973. We were so impressed by the history

of the center of American immigration, yet dumbfounded by the deterioration that had occurred since the site had been abandoned. I

begged and received permission from President Nixon, and the two

congressional appropriations committees, to begin to stabilize the

main building.

I don’t know whether you knew Congressman Sid Yates. He was

chairman of Appropriations. I took him there in 1975. His father

had come through the Great Hall as an immigrant. I’ll never forget

Sid weeping, weeping, and I thought of him this fall when I went

through. I’ve forgotten what the percentage is of Americans, the

legacy of Americans that came through the Great Hall is, but it’s

a staggering figure, and it is the most glorious site now.

The combination of taxpayers’ funds and private donations has

recreated a national site of great historical importance. This is another aside, I joined a group of Afro American children from a high

school. I joined a group of 16 young Hasitic students from a synagogue. I joined two groups from, I would say, very yuppy high

schools in upper State Connecticut that had been driven down by

buses. There was no difference in those groups, in their total fascination of what the importance of Ellis Island was to America. It

was an eerie and marvelous feeling, Mr. Chairman, of identity.

Despite the valiant efforts of public/private partnership whose

dollars support parks, inadequate funding continues to plague all

parts of the system and erodes the foundation of some of our hardearned trust.

You asked an awfully good question about Friends of the Acadia.

I’m a member, my summer home is across the bay from Acadia in

Winter Harbor, and I’ve been a member of Friends for many, many

years. I helped to establish the Yosemite Foundation, was on the

board and one of the founding members of the Yellowstone Foundation, and on this board down here as well as a founding member,

it’s called the South Florida National Park Trust. Those trusts and

foundations raised money for desperately needed projects within

their parks that Congress does not appropriate. It doesn’t buy land,

it doesn’t get involved in litigation. It does things that should be

done, but the money from Congress isn’t there.

Here in Florida, you can look at Biscayne Bay, or the Everglades,

for evidence of underfunding. I happen to fish in Biscayne Bay six

times a year, so I know it like the back of my hand. I was Assistant

Secretary when we expanded its boundaries to the north. It is an

amazing underwater park that’s part of the third largest coral reef

system in the world. But, unfortunately, Biscayne Bay’s budget has

increased by just 2 percent since 2001. According to NPCA’s recently released State of the Parks Report on Biscayne, this funding

shortfall has significant consequences for the park. Biscayne’s coral

reef is in trouble, fish populations are declining, and fresh water

flows, which the superintendent bravely mentioned, critical to the

health of the regional ecosystem, are changing.

The reason I say bravely, it’s sort of the untold story that we are

close to losing that fresh water supply that’s been promised by the

Corps of Engineers to refresh Biscayne Bay. It’s a crisis that’s in

38

the works right now. I sent a letter to the Assistant Secretary of

the Army this morning on that subject, and I’m afraid we are going

to have a terrible confrontation if the plans of the Corps of Engineers are ignored by the State of Florida and the water resources

that should be going to Biscayne are not utilized.

The park is primarily a marine park, which means that it’s

under-staffed ranger force is hard pressed to deal effectively with

illegal immigration and smuggling issues. According to a 2003 rating by the Fraternal Order of Police, Biscayne is the sixth most

dangerous park for law enforcement officers. That’s not a great

place to be.

At Everglades National Park, the operating budget increases

over the last 5 years have not kept pace with inflation or other escalating costs for the park. As a result, the park faces a lack of research scientists and law enforcement personnel.

In 2005, Everglades National Park had a total of only 12 fulltime law enforcement rangers to patrol 444,790 acres of Florida

Bay. I just was on Florida Bay Saturday and Sunday, and it was

freezing, but I’ve got to tell you, it’s still one of the most magical

places on the face of this Earth. The islands the superintendent

mentioned to Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen that shouldn’t be

touched are principally bird rookeries. There were thousands and

thousands of white birds, grey egrets, American egrets, grey herons, white pelicans, little whites, little blues, snowies, all huddled

like I should have been in the 50 degree temperature. Hopefully,

they are going to breed.

According to the most recent law enforcement needs assessment

completed in 2003 by Everglades National Park, there’s a 30 percent shortfall in the number of rangers needed to adequately staff

the park. Dan knows this. I fish there on the west side from the

10,000 islands down frequently. It’s the most popular fall snook

fishing area in Florida. It’s possible to catch 50 small snook a day

with a fly rod, may almost be too good. You are ruined for the rest

of the year.

And then I come back in January, my guide got blown out in the

hurricane, so I haven’t come back this year, but we fish after very

cold weather, giant snook move in from the Gulf and lie up in

water that’s shallower than that to get solar heat, and they’ll take

a fly at day three, four or five, as their metabolism begins to establish, and I’m talking about big fish, I’m talking about fish from 20

to 35 pounds. And, I don’t come back from Everglades City and

Chokoloskee, I don’t drive back to my home 3 hours without thanking God that I was involved in the acquisition of the Big Cypress,

and without being so proud of America and Americans for protecting something as magnificent as the Big Cypress is, and how it

connects with Everglades. I’ve walked all over it, been in the

swamps, pushed alligators and cottonmouth moccasins aside, I’ve

got to tell you, it just brings chills to me that I was involved with

an administration that cared and with a Congress that cared to

protect these areas.

The funding issues at Everglades also threaten the protection

and enhancement of the Everglades, one of the most significant

and magnificent ecosystems in the world. The problems include too

much water during very wet periods, and too few places to store

39

it when there is a drought. We are in a wet period right now, we

don’t know what to do with it, we have just been sending it out to

sea, out to St. Lucy on the east, out to Caloosahatche on the west.

We’ve ruined two estuaries and drowned the Latorio Marsh in

Okeechobee. It’s a scandal of major proportions.

We can go into the blame game of who did it. Obviously, the hurricanes, four hurricanes have added billions of gallons of water into

Lake Okeechobee, but to give you an example of misuse, we have

sent over 800 billion gallons of water, polluted water, to the estuaries in this past year, this past year, 800 billion gallons of water

which we could use when it is dry.

Our State’s rapidly growing population, and lack of Federal funding for land acquisition, threaten the ability of the NPS to assure

that our south Florida parks are buffered and restored.

Now, make no bones about it. The continuing problems of gross

agricultural pollution threaten Lake Okeechobee, the heart of the

Everglades system, and the park’s headwaters.

I’m involved with the Everglades restoration issue 7 days a week.

It’s my fascination. While the problems are numerous, the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan passed by Congress by almost a unanimous vote proposes to alleviate them through a

unique Federal/State partnership. While the vote passed the Congress by overwhelming margins, the Corps planners frankly are

tied up in bureaucratic knots, and have yet to complete a single

CERP-related project.

Part of the problem, Mr. Chairman, are new rules and regulations, and during the reform movement that’s going on in the Congress to try to reform the Corps of Engineers, a frightening prospect. Part of it is acquiring the right people to man the jobs in

Jacksonville at the district office. Part of the problem is eight hurricanes in the past 31⁄2 years.

The combination of all those has delayed every project that Congress authorized, and we are now 5 years into it, and we don’t have

a single project to go forward to the Congress for appropriations.

The Governor, tired of waiting for the Corps to overcome real and

perceived obstacles, created a program known as Excel 8, financed

by $1.5 billion of Florida taxpayers’ funds to jumpstart the process.

Frankly, some of the major Excel 8 projects have major environmental problems that must be settled regarding, not only the objectives of the proposed projects, but who the beneficiaries are supposed to be.

It is my opinion that the primary purpose of the Federal Government’s role in CERP is the restoration of federally managed lands,

that is, Biscayne National Park, Everglades National Park, and the

Big Cypress. Unfortunately, as the Everglades awaits further congressional action and administration support, land values continue

to skyrocket, development pressures increase, and major opportunities to acquire lands that are critical to the restoration of south

Florida’s national parks are lost.

Frankly, I have been frustrated by the lack of congressional oversight and the lack of consistent funding to deal with all the problems facing Florida’s national parks, so I ask repetitive, where is

the congressional accountability for funding and restoration of our

south Florida national parks?

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Only after 15 years, we finally see some real Federal funding for one of the Everglades restoration projects, thank God for it, $60

million for the restoration of flows through the Everglades into

Florida Bay. If it wasn’t for the dedicated efforts of Congressman

Clay Shaw, and by the way I spoke to his wife Emily this morning,

he is resting comfortably, he is home, he feels strong, he’s going to

make a perfect recovery from his lung operation.

David Hobson and Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez, and

a special friend, John Warner, Senator Warner, who helped enormously this year, in getting the mix-up between the two Appropriations Committees straightened out so that the money did flow to

the ModWaters Program. I don’t know whether you are aware of

that, but the two Appropriations Committees had conflicts in their

bills, and neither one wanted to give way. Senator Warner was

willing—was able to get the Senate staff to change their language

and we moved forward.

More congressional oversight and funding is still needed to ensure that we get the water right, in order to protect our south Florida parks for future generations. The verdict is still out.

I leave you, Mr. Chairman, with a sense of genuine gratitude

that you have taken time to investigate the shortcomings and financing of the National Park System, the service, and the impact

on recruiting the once broad-ranged, highly trained and motivated

Park staff, now becoming frustrated by a lack of adequate funding,

political gamesmanship, and a sense that the problems are insoluble.

I’m on the last legs of my life’s journey, and I’m determined that

my attention will continue to be focused on the incredible problems

that your subcommittee is studying. Your recommendations can

make the difference in the enhancement, if not the survival, of one

of America’s greatest gifts, not only to our citizens, but to the

world.

I wish you courage. I wish you foresight, but especially courage,

as you conclude your hearings and render your report to the Congress and the administration.

Thank you, sir, for the opportunity to appear before you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reed follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony.

We’ll now go to Mr. Lehtinen. I know the Congresswoman had

another event, that’s one of the disadvantages of being in her home

district. You can probably get anything you need to her in another

forum.

STATEMENT OF DEXTER LEHTINEN

Mr. LEHTINEN. Thank you.

Of course, I have the longer written comments submitted. I’d like

to just focus on some observations I’ve developed over the years

from serving in the State House/State Senate, U.S. Attorney, and

then as the longest serving member of the South Florida Ecosystem

Restoration Task Force.

Among others, I do represent the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of

Florida, whose Everglades lands recognized by congressional act

are north of Tamiami Trail, north, but contiguous to, Everglades

National Park, and which by congressional statute were guaranteed to the Indians to be preserved in their natural state.

It is the belief of the tribe and many others that commitment by

Congress is not being met, that the Everglades north of Tamiami

Trail is discriminated against, and does not receive the same recognition that south of Tamiami Trail does.

My remarks are twofold. One would be some very specific comments about south Florida park management, and then some comments about Everglades restoration.

What we need, perhaps, throughout the country, but especially

with south Florida park management, and Superintendent Kimball

and the others are actually making a real effort to change this bureaucratic approach, but we need the Park Service to be more people oriented, as well as take a broader ecosystem-wide approach beyond their own ownership lands.

Especially in south Florida, where we have an international airport and a large urban area, and people coming from around the

world so close to a million acres, if you think about it you don’t

really have that in many places in the country, we need to make

a greater effort to get those people to visit Everglades National

Park in an ecosystem consistent protection way, and that would

mean, for example, rebuilding Flamingo, and rebuilding it on the

congressional directive to do so, and, of course, funding it because

of the cost that would be involved. But, if we don’t have people visit

our parks, and recognize what’s the really treasure, Everglades National Park doesn’t stand out, you know, it doesn’t have the mountains and snow covered peaks, you have to visit a little bit to really

come to understand it, and it’s self defeating in the long run if we

don’t have people visit the parks.

An example of this is another recommendation is to reopen the

Chekika Springs area. It’s in the middle of Everglades National

Park, very close to our urban areas, accessible from S.W. 168

Street. It’s marked on all of Everglades National Park’s tourist literature as a camp site and as a picnic area. My brother and I used

to hunt there when it was known as Mineral Springs in the 1950’s

and 1960’s. It became Chekika State Park, named for the Indian

leader who was killed there in one of the last of the U.S. Army/

Native American battles in south Florida. And, as Chekika State

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Park we could visit it, turned over to Everglades National Park in

the early 1990’s as part of the Park Expansion Act, and almost immediately closed by Everglades National Park.

And, I haven’t been able to go there for 14 years. Superintendent

Kimball tells me they are working on it, he hasn’t been superintendent that long, and I believe him, that he wants to reopen it,

but it was closed due to a hurricane in 1992, and has stayed closed

ever since, and many of us in south Florida have just thought,

what kind of message does that send, that we’d have been better

off keeping it as a State park than in turning it over to the National Park, because all else being equal we think of the national

parks as—I don’t want to insult out State parks, but, you know,

better management, higher priority, more important.

That’s not true with Adirondack State Park, you know, in New

York State and so forth, but that was our thinking. Most of us

think we shouldn’t have turned it over to Everglades National

Park, we should have just kept it as a State enclave, and then we’d

have access to it. I do think Dan is going to make an effort in that

regard, to get Chekika open. It’s a real sore point with some members of the public that could easily be solved, while it does take

some money. But, other than money it could be solved.

I’d like to note that another thing that happened there, you

know, when Chekika was turned over, and the park expansion area

condemned several houses, houses like this that were condemned

from private owners as inconsistent with the ecosystem of the National Park were actually then reoccupied by the Park Service, and

Park Service employees live in them, and they are used sometimes

as, I think one is a fire station, and that’s something that’s hard

for a member of the public to understand, that they are kicked out

because they are inconsistent with the National Park, but then it

ends up being home for National Park employees.

Another point would be, Big Cypress, as Mr. Reed said, is a real

gem. That was a real political achievement when it was declared

a National Preserve. Exactly why it’s a called a preserve instead

of a park, you know, some limitations on the mineral rights or

something like that. That’s a little beyond me, I haven’t studied it,

but one of the points that I make as a member of the public is that

you fight those political battles and you achieve a political accommodation. We did that with the Modified Water Deliveries Act in

1989, and with Big Cypress National Preserve.

The Big Cypress National Preserve enabling legislation assures

that the Preserve will be maintained, but it does guarantee certain

public access to it, and the perception of hunters and others is that

access has gradually eroded improperly and that the eventual goal

is to exclude them from it.

Now, I’m not talking about ATVs and those kinds of things

should be in there. I think the Preserve has every right to use all

of the regulations necessary to preserve the Preserve, small p and

capital P, but there is a sense that the general orientation of the

Park Service is always toward moving people out of park use. So,

I don’t make that accusation as much as I say that is an area that

will be looked at a great deal by the public, both to maintain and

honor the enabling legislation. That is to say, whatever the enabling legislation, what deal was cut there, let’s not have a what’s

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mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable kind of approach. Let’s

honor that enabling legislation and, ultimately, preserve the Preserve under that way.

Another issue that there will be a lot of future publicity about

deals with the Florida panther. Actually, the Florida panther that

is either no longer in existence or will no longer be in existence

within 10 years, the fact is the Florida panther was going into extinction due to natural breeding conditions. So, the Texas cougar

was brought in and cross bred with the Florida panther, and that

cat that now exists is less nocturnal and more aggressive than the

Florida panther was, and it poses a threat to human beings. Cougars in the west have, when we were there 2 years ago on a visit

in California, a camper was killed by a cougar, joggers have been

killed by cougars. The current Florida cougar, the DNA different

cat that’s traveling under the name Florida panther, has been seen

and observed electronically, at least Panther 124 that has a collar

on it, goes into National Park Service camp grounds while there

are campers there, and there was a plan developed under the Endangered Species Act that if these cats, 124 did it three times, you

know, if they did it once you’d try to environally sensitize it, encourage it, you know, teach it not to come in there. But, if it ended

up coming three times into the backyards of residents, you know,

where there are small children, dogs, you know, out west the pattern is the cougar eats the dog first and then goes after people

later, that if it happened three times it would be captively caught

and bred, not executed, but moved and then after it—because it’s

got two cubs, pretty old cubs now with it that are not collared, but

when the cougar violated that rule about 10 times they just abandoned that rule and have another rule, which is, eminent danger.

And, residents in that area, some of whom are Miccosukee Indians, but most of whom are not Miccosukee Indians, will shoot that

cougar, or Florida panther 124, or their kids won’t be able to defend themselves and they’ll be injured or killed, and either way

that’s bad for the Endangered Species Act, to say the least. We

need a proactive approach instead of the ideological idea, OK, we

want to save the panther, but the fact is, that Florida panther is

gone. I mean, every biologist says the Florida panther either no

longer exists or those few adults that remain will not exist within

10 years.

We are not saying don’t try to save it with a cross breed, don’t

have, you know, like this new animal, but one has to not allow the

bureaucratic imperative where as a Government official you are

supposed to be like on the side of the animal, be blinded, blind you

to the fact that it’s not the same animal, it doesn’t have the same

DNA, it’s bred with a western cougar, and that produces different

behavior patterns and some real fears on the part of the people

who live in the loop road area.

I don’t view this kind of testimony as much as hostile to the Endangered Species Act as favorable. In other words, the way you are

going to protect this act is by reaching accommodations, you know,

is by balancing the human and the animal factors, but without that

balancing we are going to end up with a prosecution in Federal

Court for shooting a cougar that a jury is not going to convict on,

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because, you know, they are going to think you are entitled to protect your kids and that it isn’t a Florida panther anyway.

With regard to restoration, let me just say this. It’s a broad topic.

The dilemma in restoration is that all of us want to recognize the

incredible progress of restoration. We’ve made a lot of progress. We

are making a lot of progress in water quality, especially up north,

especially as a result of litigation that has brought the State in line

with respect to creating storm water treatment areas that protect

for water quality.

But, with respect to water quantity, that is to say hydro period,

we have some real problems, and one of them is that Federal agencies do not take an ecosystem-wide view. The largest remaining

part of the fresh water Florida Everglades, the Margery Stoneman

Douglas River of grass is outside of Everglades National Park. Everglades National Park, all of it, is worth saving, but a substantial

part of it is Florida Bay, well worth saving, but not fresh water

Florida Everglades.

The marine estuarian elements of Everglades National Park are

well worth saving, but they are not the fresh water Florida Everglades. The fresh water Margery Stoneman Douglass slews are in

the northern part of Everglades National Park, and the largest

part of the remaining Florida Everglades is in tribal land and

north up to the Everglades agricultural area that Mr. Reed indicated was a problem source of pollution, and in the Loxahatchee

National Wildlife Refuge. That’s the largest part of the Everglades.

What we need is an approach that treats all of the Everglades

equally, and I believe that’s the mandate of the Water Resources

Development Act 2000 CERP Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.

However, one of the questions, since you had spoken of earlier,

I was going to throw in there, you were asking about personnel,

those of us on the Task Force, the non-governmental, Federal Governmental members, have always wondered how much of this restoration money is actually funding Department of Interior personnel costs. I mean, most people think it goes to doing something on

the ground, it goes to a project, but a lot of it seemingly goes to

personnel costs, and we’ve never had that answer. Mr. Kimball is

forthright and says something like he got 40 additional positions in

the Park, but it would be defying the logic of organizational management to believe that 40 additional Park employees are going to

focus their attention on how to save the entire Everglades, most of

which is not in the park.

It’s the same problem you had in the Vietnam War. You assigned

Army officers to a civilian development project, and they might do

a good job, but it doesn’t get them their command time, their officer

efficiency report doesn’t come from another Army officer. I mean,

we have serious problems in having the Federal agencies analyze

the entire Everglades.

The best current example is the so-called interim plans that have

been adopted for the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow in the western

Everglades National Park, the western side, where the S12 structures are, just before you hit Big Cypress. Just figure you go west,

and before you hit Big Cypress, south of Tamiami Trail there is the

sub-population A of the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow, so named beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\28170.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cause it was found in Cape Sable. Its declared habitat is nowhere

near that part of the park, and it was never found there until it

got blown there or moved there, and it’s not a declared habitat.

The least number of birds were there, Sub-pop A had 25 singing

males, they multiplied by 16. We have disputes about that, but

that was their number.

Starting in 1998, they said Endangered Species Act, an act in

which the Government is the prosecutor, judge and jury, if you are

not the decisionmaker, if you are not an agency official in the ESA

you lose, that’s the way the ESA works, Government wins, outside

people lose.

The determination was made that water had to be kept lower

south of Tamiami Trail, a move away from the surf-adopted Natural System Model. This is the model submitted to Congress that

said this is, we are going to restore the Everglades, according to

NSM, Natural System Model, we want lower waters in the park

south of the trail, higher waters north of the trail. We get those

by blocking the 12 structures that let water through Tamiami

Trail, lower on the south, higher on the north, all in the name of

restoration.

The current position is, we cannot move toward restoration goals,

because the Endangered Species Act won’t let us do it. The point

is, the Everglades has been altered, we all say, by man-made action. To return to its natural condition means that something that

moved, you know, altered environments are not dead environments, they are different environments, something moves in, you

know, that wasn’t there naturally. Well, when you start to restore,

for example, you have certain trees grow up in an altered environment, and when you restore water flow the first thing you start to

see is those trees die. And, if you stand there in a time-lapse photography, you might say we are really doing a lot of damage because this nice green area is now looking brown. Well, that’s natural, we are getting it back to what it was.

Well, there’s birds moved in to low water, and we are being told

we can’t go to natural levels of water because of the bird. In the

meantime, the undeclared habitat in the south is protected, the declared habitat is the snail kite north of Tamiami Trail is being

flooded with loss of tree islands according to the Corps of Engineers

at the rate of more than eight tree islands a year, and more than

246 acres a year due to the flooding. Tree islands, as you might

guess, I don’t think I would need to explain it, but tree islands are

these areas that create the real diversity in the Everglades. I

mean, that’s where you have some of your smaller mammals and,

you know, your alligators come on and eat some rats, and whatever

happens there, you know, and that’s where you get your diversity.

That’s what all the scientists say, if you go to no tree islands then

you have a very non-diverse, non-natural Everglades. We’ve lost

more than almost half of the tree islands since the Central and

South Florida Project went into existence, this is a U.S. Government figure, and since this new 1998 block the water to save this

Cape Sable’s 25 singing males we’ve lost more than eight tree islands a year north of the trail, and 246 acres.

Now, if that were Federal property, and not State Everglades or

Indian land, it would be called a crisis. But, Tamiami Trail is the

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boundary line, so it’s not of concern much to the Federal Government.

We have, in fact, this plan adopted in 1998 that was supposed

to save the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow, now has found no Cape

Sable Seaside Sparrows, or one Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow,

meaning a 90 percent reduction.

Now, in high school science fair classes you say, here’s a condition, here’s my hypothesis, if I block this water my birds are going

to prosper, and then your chart goes the other way, down to no

birds at all, you have to say my hypothesis was wrong, to get by

your high school science fair project, but you don’t have to say that

when you are Federal scientists, because you own the scientific

process. You just say, so what.

I mean, that’s the problem we have there. We are being moved

away from restoration goals by a lack of system-wide approach. We

can say—they can say the Endangered Species Act forces them to

do it, but the fact of the matter is, if they wanted to do something

else they’d say the Endangered Species Act forces us to let the

water through because the snail kite is being killed north of

Tamiami Trail. You just pick your bird, that’s what you do, the way

the Endangered Species Act works now.

A second and third area related are Modified Water Deliveries

adopted in 1989, supposed to be done in 1996, the plan as approved

by Congress adopted the act in 1989, the General Design Memorandum approved in 1992 by Congress and the Corps submitted it.

The Park Service didn’t like that plan. It wanted to condemn more

than 500 residents on the edge of the park outside of the park expansion area, where the act said they will be protected. Two different plans to do that were found unlawful in court, and eventually Congress let them have 20 percent of those residents and protected the other 80.

In the meantime, that failure to adopt that plan means you can’t

move the water over through N.E. Shark River Slew, and you are

still backing water up into Water Conservation Area 3, doing serious damage to the historic Everglades, and you have the following

circumstance now, the amount of water that ModWaters was supposed to move, and that’s a pre-CERP project, and in 2000 Congress said they want that pre-CERP project done before we do the

CERP reconnecting projects, and you can’t raise Tamiami Trail,

word of 2000 says you cannot raise Tamiami Trail until you finish

ModWaters. Well, that legislation doesn’t mean too much to us in

the field. We now have adopted a model, we being the Federal

team here, that moves, not only twice the amount of water that

ModWaters called for, but moves more water than CERP calls for,

in order to justify building two bridges on Tamiami Trail, which

word of 2000 says you can’t do.

Don Young from Alaska already sent them a letter, said it’s unlawful, you can’t do it without congressional authorization. They

are going to adopt that proposal anyway, drop it in your lap, and

say you wreck the Everglades if you won’t spend the money, which

is now four and five times the original projection of the ModWaters

Project.

The Indian tribe and others of us look at this and say, long-term

goals are fine, but when you are always making a deal and then

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breaking that deal in order to slide in your personalized view of

what’s better for the Everglades, like let’s move more than CERP

authorized water, twice ModWaters authorized water, under the

label ModWaters, what you do is, you just stop the projects, you

slow them down, you cause serious problems in the northern part

of the Everglades.

Now, this is the part of Everglades restoration that concern us.

In a longer-term view, we’d list all the successes, as Mr. Reed has.

There are successes. This is worth funding. The only dilemma

someone like I have in criticizing restoration, and I’ve done this

many times, is going to Washington and saying, look, what we

want you to do is more oversight, we want you to get control, but

what we don’t want you to do is divert these funds. Everglades restoration is worth it, the fact that we have some problems and disagreements in implementing it should not lead to the conclusion,

well, let’s cut that off and dump it in, you know, some project in

Wyoming.

And, some of us are reluctant to criticize the failed elements of

Everglades restoration, or the difficult elements, because we are

afraid, you know, it will be used as ammunition against restoration

overall.

I like to think that won’t happen, that the overall value of restoration, and even the disagreements between elements here, I

mean, we think the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow is a scandal, but

the fact of the matter is, if that thing gets worked out, and we’ll

be hands in hands with the people who we think messed that up

radically, I mean, you know, we each have our viewpoints. We

argue they are wrong, they say we are wrong, that’s all within a

team that wants to see the Everglades restored, and we want you

to keep spending the money, just put some strings on it that assure

you that it’s being spent the way you want it to be spent, but don’t

reach the conclusion that it’s not worthy to fund these projects, because the fact of the matter is, I think you have in south Florida

about as good a national and international interest, and at least a,

what do you call those projects, when you call them a local—well

no, I mean, you know, a project that has no real national value,

I mean, this, the only arguments down here are not over its national value, it’s just over how to do it. And, when you are arguing

over how to do it, that’s a worthy argument no matter which side

you are on.

Appreciate your time, and you’ve been here quite a while, I

would not have predicted it, that you’d be here so long.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lehtinen follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Well, thank you.

We have an agreement to leave this room in just a few minutes.

I want to make a couple comments and ask just a couple questions.

First off, this wouldn’t happen in Washington, we’d do this 5-

minute rule and bang, you know, people come in and out, and you

are called, and that’s why I wanted to have a full statement, because it just doesn’t happen in a record to have those kind of

things. So, I think that Mr. Lehtinen has raised an illustration of

one of the challenges we have in the National Park Service, and

that is that things that happened, and Mr. Reed did a similar

thing, things that happened outside the park are having bigger and

bigger impacts on the parks, whether it’s invasive species, whether

it’s—it was fascinating to talk about the salt water and the fresh

water.

We vacation once a year over at Sanibal Island, and as we were

coming down the West Coast the front page of the Fort Myers

newspaper is about the overflow in Lake Okeechobee, going into

the river, going into Fort Myers, which has apparently caused a

whole bunch of dead fish over in Ding Darling, and is a mess over

in Sanibal. In fact, what happens to this water? How do you manage the water? The north and south, this whole question of endangered species and shifting habitat, and in the Park Service once

you get into the details and you are inside, my first exposure on

the Parks Committee was, do you preserve the cyclorama at the

Gettysburg Battlefield because it’s a national historic structure sitting on the point of land where it is arguably part of the reason,

if not the major reason, we have the Gettysburg Battlefield, which

was the highland point and people were parking all over it, and

what a mess to try to sort out, because is it the building or the historic structure? What happens in a park at Concord and Lexington,

where we were looking at, should the battle road look like the battle, or what if you brought into the Park Service buildings from the

1840’s and 1880’s and represented their times in history, and then

the trees are planted at Presidio and on this trail that weren’t

there, that, in effect, don’t give you the historic feeling of the park.

But, now people bike along them, and think it would be a travesty

if you tore out the trees that are in the Gettysburg Battlefield, the

peach orchard isn’t in the right place, I mean there we made the

decision to get it more like the battlefield. But, that hasn’t been

done on the battlefield road, and it hasn’t been done at the Presidio.

These are tough choices when Federal laws run into Federal

laws, and we have to have, in my opinion, to some degree what the

Park Service is doing with core ops, in trying to identify what are

the priorities within the parks, how do you decide what your core

mission was, your secondary mission, it’s a thing that private business has to do all the time, in that, how do we force these tradeoffs,

and how do we have an open debate?

I can tell you how it is in Congress. The first thing is, each one

of us are so overwhelmed in our own district, the idea of a fight

in somebody else’s district means you get your head down and you

go, local guy, handle your local fight, then come to us. The problem

is, what about if it crosses Members’ districts, like in Florida, or

it’s a project of national significance, how much do you defer to

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which local Congressman, when you are telling me this is going all

the way up to, say, Foley and Weldon’s district and coming all the

way down through this district, how do you resolve something like

that?

The usual House solution, by the way, isn’t to let the Senate decide. We figure out how to meddle anyway. But, that was a good

discussion for me to hear some of those kind of tradeoffs.

I do have a very particularized question, Mr. Reed. One of the

things that has been very interesting in these hearings is to have

people who have a national perspective for a number of years, that

former park superintendents, people who have been in the different

administrations, and to kind of get an overview of what we are facing now versus what you face, clearly, being efficient in wildlife

and in multiple positions you’ve seen different challenges. You’ve

suggested some of that. I’d be interested in hearing how you would

better integrate, not only in the Park Service, but with the—I

mean, we all know that the names, what’s a preserve, what’s a

recreation area, we’ve become so confused inside the Park Service,

but let’s not even talk about just Park Service, how does this interrelate in a system with other Federal agencies, BLM, Army Corps,

Fish and Wildlife, when clearly in the south Florida system they

are completely integrated. And then also, if you could talk a little

bit, it is extraordinary the amount of time and your personal life

you’ve invested in starting things like Yosemite Fund, Friends of

Acadia, and so on, how can we, because clearly the Federal Government alone, no matter how much we plus this up, isn’t going to

meet the needs of an expanding system, how can we get the next

generation, and do you see this happening, of whether it’s Hollywood money, music money, soft, kind of the high tech money, the

computer type money, the new wealth in America, the kind of older

establishment wealth looked at our natural lands, now many of the

new people seem to think, well, the Federal Government is going

to take over this, and they’ll kind of run to the project of the moment, how can we get the romance of the parks back? How can we

capture some of the new people, adopt different parks, how do we

do this?

Mr. REED. That’s a good question, Mr. Chairman.

At Acadia, besides the Rockefeller money, there was substantial

grants from the heir of Campbell Soups, and other associates who

had made more recent fortunes on the market or through innovative investments.

Secretary Babbitt was there a day when I joined him. The Park received a check for $12 million, entirely privately raised among

the summer residents, northeast, southwest, and the Rockefeller

dominion.

We started slowly at Yosemite, but I haven’t got the figures anymore, but the figures of what it raises per year, Bill Lane, former

publisher of Sunset Magazine, involved me, Bill was a great personal friend, former Ambassador, dynamic lover of national parks,

and I’m sure he was at probably one of your hearings. If not, you

should invite him to testify, even though he’s in his late 80’s, he

is still a most dynamic supporter of the System and the Service.

Yellowstone, the same thing. Mike Finley was Superintendent,

and he was desperate for funding, for a whole bunch of different

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projects that wasn’t going to be possible, and he put together a

group from all over the country, plus an astonishing group of people just outside the park between the northern boundary and Bozeman, and at the south to Grand Titan and Jackson, and they are

well underway. I’m no longer a member of the foundation, because

I found it difficult to leave Florida twice a year to attend meetings.

I’m beginning to rethink that one, and get to Yellowstone.

Everglades desperately needs an increase in funding for a whole

bunch of different projects, which are not covered by Federal appropriations.

Yes, your question is good, how do we get the Gates’, the

‘‘Gates’ ’’ of this world, to step forward with these vast fortunes that

have been made in the last 25 years and take an interest in the

National Park System?

I do think there’s going to be a continuing responsibility, regardless of the pressures on the budget, for the Federal Government,

for the Congress to step up, and honestly assume the mantle and

responsibility of managing, and overseeing, and funding the National Park System.

1971 to 1977, my period, was a period where Rogers Morton was

Secretary for four of those years, and came from the Congress, Congressman from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the last Eastern

Secretary of Interior, followed in rapid order by two more Western

Secretaries who I served, and the overwhelming feeling in the

Nixon/Ford administration was, expansion, save that land now or

we’ll lose it.

That certainly was true in Big Cypress, it was certainly true

going through the Nixon/Ford administration, into the Carter administration, on the Alaska Lands Act, which basically the lands

that were withdrawn by President Carter, those maps were drawn

by my staff work in 1971 to 1977, we handed over to Secretary Andrews a complete set of maps and a complete set of EISs, and I

would be very honored, I have one of the pens from President

Carter when he signed the act, and I had the great privilege of

working with Members of the House and Senate to see that act

passed.

So, that was a period of growth, enormous growth. We probably

could be criticized validly for understating the amount of money

and manpower needed to manage the parks full time after acquisition or removal from National Forest or BLL lands, the creation of

the new Park System. I accept that. We picked a basic number of

manpower positions and costs to open the park initially and get

planning underway.

I think the Congress knew perfectly well, the Appropriations

Committee knew perfectly well, because I always responded faithfully. Mr. Secretary, are you going to need more manpower in years

to come? And the answer was, yes. This is the minimum amount

of manpower needed to open these places and protect them.

When you have your hearings in Alaska, you’ll find that you’ve

got a skeleton crew still on the land there, but in high-use parks,

Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Yosemite, the Congress has known from

day one that the needs for additional manpower were real.

Now, there were surprises all along the line. Former Assistant

Secretary Stan, professor of ecology at University of Michigan, left

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me a letter on my desk when I was confirmed in May 1971, I’m

leaving you a bunch of problems. And, I promised to myself I

wasn’t going to do that to my successor, and I did it.

Among them was, timber companies that were ravishing the

headwaters of Redwood Creek, and we were going to lose the Avenue of Tall Trees in Redwood Creek, which was one of the most expensive purchases in America’s history. Nobody told me that the

grizzly bears were still being fed garbage in Yellowstone National

Park, and I would be on the front pages of the American newspapers for the next 5 years taking on the Craighead brothers, who

were photogenic, biologists, well-known researchers in Yellowstone,

and I had a liberal arts degree from a small college, community college in Hartford, CT, and even though I was supported by three of

the greatest ecologists in America I had to destroy over 180 bears

that could not survive in the wild, and who had become totally accustomed to eating human garbage. And, I had to ask the Appropriations Committee for millions of dollars to make every garbage

can inside the park and outside the park in the Forest Service

areas bear proof, so that bears could not continue to eat human

garbage.

Dr. Starker Leopold of California Berkeley said, ‘‘Once a grizzly

bear gets into human garbage it’s exactly like mainlining one of the

most powerful drugs in the world. He’ll never forget the glorious

good taste of human garbage, and he’ll kill to get it.’’

One of the happiest moments of my life is to see that there are

525 grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, every corner of

Yellowstone Park that we agreed upon in the 1970’s, if they were

filled with bears we could take the bear off the endangered species

list. We’ve arrived at that, there are over 700 bears between the

park and the National Forest lands. But, that was a cruel period

in my life. Those are tough decisions.

My distinguished friend, Mr. Lehtinen, and I do not agree on the

Cape Sable Sparrow, and I will furnish the Staff Director with my

response, but I do agree, heartily agree, that our disagreements are

minor compared to our agreement on the continued need for congressional oversight and support to restore the Everglades.

Boy, he made a powerful statement, and that’s what I’d like to

leave with you, is the vast majority of the people of this State, all

congressional districts, every poll shows that the people of Florida

are willing to spend, a Governor putting in a $1.5 billion, committing $1.5 billion, that’s on top of $200 million a year for the last

4 years extra, to acquire lands and try to get this system straight.

It is, the system is a mess.

Mr. Lehtinen is right, we’ve got too much water in the upper Everglades. Where is it coming from? It’s coming from the agricultural area, the vast 500,000 acres of sugar cane, that every time

it rains is pumped directly into the upper Everglades, it floods it,

and we have no way to get it out except through the Modified—

we might disagree, we do disagree, on whether the present Modified Water Delivery Plan is a better plan than the one originally

proposed. Yes, we would have gained time had we done it his way,

we are getting, in my opinion we are getting a better one by waiting. Congress has funded it. We are underway. We are digging out

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there right now, the Corps at last is doing something in restoration.

We should be using Conservation Area 3B to get rid of a lot of

water that’s drowning the tree islands. I’ve been to the tree islands.

I went with the representatives of the Miccosukee Tribe in airbus

to those islands. I wept as a member of the Water Board. I served

14 years on the South Florida Water Management District Board.

I didn’t serve just 2 days a month, I often worked 11, 12 days a

month. I know what damage has been done to the system.

But, I also have, perhaps, different ideas on how we can alleviate

the problems that we face right now.

I need to get on the road, because I’m going to hit U.S. No. 1 and

I–95 and the Turnpike at the height of the Florida maddest period

of the day, which starts in about—started about an hour ago, but

it will get worse. I just want to reiterate to you and the members

of your staff the deep appreciation we all have in this room that

you’ve undertaken this mission, and God bless you.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to thank both of you for your testimony. If

you have any additional materials you want to give us, we may

have some additional questions provided through print.

Thank you very much.

The subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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