Talking about cuts to the Federal parks....I found this off of the RVBusiness website today:
National Parks Limit Operations to Satisfy Cuts
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March 21, 2013 by
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With spring vacations looming, popular destinations from Florida’s Gulf Stream waters to California’s redwood forest are now implementing mandatory spending cuts, known as sequestration, that started this month.
The failure of Congress and President Barack Obama to agree on reducing the deficit triggered $85 billion in cuts by Sept. 30 that are to be split between defense and non-defense spending,
Bloomberg News reported.
With Congress and the White House deadlocked, visitors to landmarks run by the National Park Service will confront longer lines, dirtier bathrooms and closed visitor centers. Sequestration is causing federal facilities — particularly the parks — to delay maintenance, freeze hiring, trim operating hours and cancel programs for school groups.
“Visitors will see a reduction in services,” Dave Uberuaga, superintendent at
Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, said in a March 1 e-mail to holders of commercial use permits to operate in the park.
That means a two-hour reduction in summer hours at the park’s main visitor center, longer processing times for backcountry permits and extended lines to enter the park, which has an average 4.38 million visitors a year.
Grand Canyon’s restrooms and campgrounds will be cleaned less often, and repairs to damaged trails will take longer, Uberuaga said in a phone interview. Sequestration cut $1.1 million from $21 million in 2012 federal funding. The park has stopped hiring and eliminated staff travel and overtime, except for an emergency, he said.
Tours of the
White House were canceled this month, though Obama last week said he is seeking a way to resume them for school groups.
Visitor centers at
Acadia National Park in Maine and
Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts will delay opening or reduce operating hours. Acadia, which is losing $390,000 from its $7.8 million budget for the year ending Sept. 30, may not open its center until mid-May, a month later than usual, Len Bobinchock, deputy superintendent, said in a phone interview.
Cape Cod plans to reduce hours at the Province Lands visitor center and may close the facility, which hosts about 260,000 tourists a year, said Superintendent George Price. A National Park Service statement last year showed visitors to the seashore and surrounding areas spent more than $171 million in 2010, supporting about 2,000 jobs in Massachusetts.
“Our economic footprint here on Cape Cod is pretty significant,” Price said in a phone interview.
A hiring freeze at
Padre Island National Seashore, which stretches for 70 miles along the Gulf of Mexico south of Corpus Christi, Texas, will trim the patrol force to nine officers from 11, Joe Escoto, park superintendent said in a phone interview.
Federal budget cuts also put animal life in jeopardy. The endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle lives near Padre Island and park rangers usually find turtle eggs and transfer them to incubators to shield them from tides, predators and tourists driving on the beach. If sequestration persists, and leads to fewer beach patrols, it may hurt the turtle population, Escoto said.
At
Biscayne National Park south of Miami, officials have canceled environmental-education camps through Sept. 30, upending the plans of about 50 students, said Assistant Superintendent Sula Jacobs.
“We’re undergoing our busiest season now,” Cheryl Chipman, a spokeswoman for
Death Valley National Park in California, said in an interview. While visitors won’t see many immediate changes, Chipman said that may change if the spending reductions are sustained and vacant positions, including park electrician, aren’t filled in coming months, when Death Valley becomes one of the Earth’s hottest places.
“If we have problems with air conditioning and facilities at 120 degrees, that’s going to be a problem,” Chipman said.
Further north in California, at
Yosemite National Park, officials are cutting a $28 million base budget by $1.4 million. Options include reducing or cutting ranger-led programs at sites including the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias and Glacier Point, a popular lookout, according to Scott Gediman, a Yosemite spokesman.
“This is going to be phased in,” he said in a phone interview. “The park is going to remain open. We’re not looking at closing any facilities.”
Jim Kathy & Robert ~ NE. OH.
So it saves me some money and I don't have to scrounge for ground worms for food. 
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