"Sustainability at Our National Parks"
Fireside Talk
"Sustainability at Our National Parks"
Posted December 2, 2012
J. William T. Youngs
I ran across an article this evening that ties in nicely with a number of themes in our class on the History of American National Parks. The title is “Sustainability at Our National Parks.” (mother nature network, online at mnn.com, November 9, 2012) Let’s look at some of the eco-friendly developments it mentions and consider them in the light of our class and your professor’s recent travels.
ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY TRANSPORTATION
From the article:
Visitors to the Grand Canyon no longer have to battle traffic as they travel around the South Rim. The National Park Service operates a series of free shuttle buses that run on clean burning compressed natural gas (CNG). The reduced emissions help keep the park’s atmosphere clear so visitors can take in the pure beauty of the canyon.
Across the country at Acadia National Park in Maine, visitors can board a free propane-powered shuttle bus. In August 2011, the bus transported its 4-millionth passenger. Propane is also in use at Glacier National Park in Montana. The park’s iconic Red Bus fleet has been operating on propane for more than a decade.
(Additionally, the article notes that Zion National Park has electric vehicle charging stations.)
COMMENT: I’ve encountered these buses lately in Acadia and Yosemite National Parks. They are environmentally friendly in two ways. First, they burn cleaner fuel, propane or natural gas. Second, they get people out of gas-burning automobiles and onto the busses that can replace a dozen or more cars as people-movers. In some cases we have seen that cars are banned but busses are not: that’s the case in Denali where you board a bus for the last few miles of highway towards the mountain. On a smaller scale, buses can go into some sections of Yosemite where cars are banned.
The battle against cars in the parks goes back to the time of their first introduction. Remember what Lord James Bryce says in the Burns-Duncan National Parks book: “if Adam had known what harm the serpent was going to work, he would have tried to prevent him from finding lodgment in Eden; if you stop to realize what the result of the automobile will be in that wonderful, that incomparable valley, you will keep it out… Do not let the serpent enter Eden at all.” (page 204)
At about the same time, John D. Rockefeller, having lost the battle to keep automobiles out of Acadia, elected to build an entire new highway system on the island and limit its use to horses, carriages, bicycles, and hikers. Here is what a section of one of those roads looked like through my camera lens last fall, 2011:
"Sustainability at Our National Parks"
Posted December 2, 2012
J. William T. Youngs
I ran across an article this evening that ties in nicely with a number of themes in our class on the History of American National Parks. The title is “Sustainability at Our National Parks.” (mother nature network, online at mnn.com, November 9, 2012) Let’s look at some of the eco-friendly developments it mentions and consider them in the light of our class and your professor’s recent travels.
ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY TRANSPORTATION
From the article:
Visitors to the Grand Canyon no longer have to battle traffic as they travel around the South Rim. The National Park Service operates a series of free shuttle buses that run on clean burning compressed natural gas (CNG). The reduced emissions help keep the park’s atmosphere clear so visitors can take in the pure beauty of the canyon.
Across the country at Acadia National Park in Maine, visitors can board a free propane-powered shuttle bus. In August 2011, the bus transported its 4-millionth passenger. Propane is also in use at Glacier National Park in Montana. The park’s iconic Red Bus fleet has been operating on propane for more than a decade.
(Additionally, the article notes that Zion National Park has electric vehicle charging stations.)
COMMENT: I’ve encountered these buses lately in Acadia and Yosemite National Parks. They are environmentally friendly in two ways. First, they burn cleaner fuel, propane or natural gas. Second, they get people out of gas-burning automobiles and onto the busses that can replace a dozen or more cars as people-movers. In some cases we have seen that cars are banned but busses are not: that’s the case in Denali where you board a bus for the last few miles of highway towards the mountain. On a smaller scale, buses can go into some sections of Yosemite where cars are banned.
The battle against cars in the parks goes back to the time of their first introduction. Remember what Lord James Bryce says in the Burns-Duncan National Parks book: “if Adam had known what harm the serpent was going to work, he would have tried to prevent him from finding lodgment in Eden; if you stop to realize what the result of the automobile will be in that wonderful, that incomparable valley, you will keep it out… Do not let the serpent enter Eden at all.” (page 204)
At about the same time, John D. Rockefeller, having lost the battle to keep automobiles out of Acadia, elected to build an entire new highway system on the island and limit its use to horses, carriages, bicycles, and hikers. Here is what a section of one of those roads looked like through my camera lens last fall, 2011:
SUSTAINABLE DINING
From the Article:
Yellowstone National Park’s Mammoth Hotel Dining Room is a Green Restaurant Association certified restaurant. The dining room earned a three-star rating (on a four-star scale) for its use of local and organic food, recycling and composting program and the use of energy and water efficient products.
At Muir Woods Café in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, visitors are treated to healthy and sustainable grab and go items. Staffers created a rating system that it used when assessing contract bids. Points were awarded in several categories including use of organic and local produce, Seafood Watch green list items, non-disposable water containers and more. The result is a restaurant that not only focuses on sustainable dining but also serves as an educational tool for park visitors.
From the Article:
Yellowstone National Park’s Mammoth Hotel Dining Room is a Green Restaurant Association certified restaurant. The dining room earned a three-star rating (on a four-star scale) for its use of local and organic food, recycling and composting program and the use of energy and water efficient products.
At Muir Woods Café in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, visitors are treated to healthy and sustainable grab and go items. Staffers created a rating system that it used when assessing contract bids. Points were awarded in several categories including use of organic and local produce, Seafood Watch green list items, non-disposable water containers and more. The result is a restaurant that not only focuses on sustainable dining but also serves as an educational tool for park visitors.
Shop in Muir Woods National Monument: Note Solar Panel on Roof
COMMENT: Several thoughts come to mind here. On healthy food coming from local and organic sources, I think of a time long, long ago when that was taken to the extreme. Let’s remember that the first service providers in Yellowstone were allowed to shoot game and plant garden plots in the park to feed their staff and guests. We turned our back on those approaches long ago, but perhaps we should not be too quick to judge. “Back in the day” they lacked modern refrigeration.
On those non-disposable water bottles, I say, amen! I’ve seen too many carelessly discarded plastic water bottles in pretty much all the parks I visited during the past year. The vast majority of us carry it in and carry it out, but there are the sloppy few who trash up the scene for everyone else. And so in the Grand Canyon, for example, venders are not allowed to sell bottled water. You have to buy a container, and presumably you will keep it with you.
And that reminds me of Stephen Mather with his “Mather Mountain Party” coming on a sloppy campsite: all of those businessmen rolled up their sleeves and cleaned up the place. Behind them they left that wonderfully terse note: “We have cleaned your camp. Keep it clean.” In many ways, these days, we are getting better at keeping our parks clean.
One more thing: what is happening on the sustainability front after the food has been consumed? Some parks, we are told, are focusing on composting and recycling. Hey, I have an idea. In the old days they handled some of that by inviting the bears to dinner, or more accurately to an after-dinner dinner at the garbage dump, killing two culinary needs, so to speak, with one meal – and entertaining the tourists as well. Tourists win, bears win – so where’s the harm!
(I hope you realize that I’m kidding, but this does provide an interesting prompt: what exactly is wrong with feeding bears and entertaining tourists this way?!)
GREEN BUILDING
From the Article:
The National Park Service is home to dozens of green buildings, including many that have earned LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The agency stepped things up this year, though, with the opening of the National Park Service’s first net zero visitor center.
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Visitor Center in Calabasas, California is a LEED Platinum certified net zero building. A 94 kW solar photovoltaic system provides enough electricity to power the facility. Other green building features of the facility include a geothermal cooling system, a solar hot water heating system, water efficient plumbing and a clay roof tile “cool roof.”
COMMENT: Ideally park buildings are not only “Green” in terms of energy usage, but also in terms of aesthetics, blending into the landscape. Remember all of the criticisms of Mission 66 on aesthetic grounds. The same buildings were probably deficient in energy sustainability. We are getting better, and I have seen a lot of solar panels in the parks. (By the way, I recently installed a solar panel on top of my RV.) (This is a perhaps-not-so-clever attempt to hide the fact from you my RV itself is a major gas-guzzler. And I know, you weren’t fooled!)
One of the great lessons in our weeks of studying the National Parks is that nothing has come easy in the development of the parks. Not only are there “antagonists” fighting against the parks, but among the park admirers there are sometimes conflicting opinions. I’m thinking of this stump from a very big and old tree that I saw in Silver Lake State Park Campground last summer in Vermont. (The campground serves visitors to nearby Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.
COMMENT: Several thoughts come to mind here. On healthy food coming from local and organic sources, I think of a time long, long ago when that was taken to the extreme. Let’s remember that the first service providers in Yellowstone were allowed to shoot game and plant garden plots in the park to feed their staff and guests. We turned our back on those approaches long ago, but perhaps we should not be too quick to judge. “Back in the day” they lacked modern refrigeration.
On those non-disposable water bottles, I say, amen! I’ve seen too many carelessly discarded plastic water bottles in pretty much all the parks I visited during the past year. The vast majority of us carry it in and carry it out, but there are the sloppy few who trash up the scene for everyone else. And so in the Grand Canyon, for example, venders are not allowed to sell bottled water. You have to buy a container, and presumably you will keep it with you.
And that reminds me of Stephen Mather with his “Mather Mountain Party” coming on a sloppy campsite: all of those businessmen rolled up their sleeves and cleaned up the place. Behind them they left that wonderfully terse note: “We have cleaned your camp. Keep it clean.” In many ways, these days, we are getting better at keeping our parks clean.
One more thing: what is happening on the sustainability front after the food has been consumed? Some parks, we are told, are focusing on composting and recycling. Hey, I have an idea. In the old days they handled some of that by inviting the bears to dinner, or more accurately to an after-dinner dinner at the garbage dump, killing two culinary needs, so to speak, with one meal – and entertaining the tourists as well. Tourists win, bears win – so where’s the harm!
(I hope you realize that I’m kidding, but this does provide an interesting prompt: what exactly is wrong with feeding bears and entertaining tourists this way?!)
GREEN BUILDING
From the Article:
The National Park Service is home to dozens of green buildings, including many that have earned LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The agency stepped things up this year, though, with the opening of the National Park Service’s first net zero visitor center.
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Visitor Center in Calabasas, California is a LEED Platinum certified net zero building. A 94 kW solar photovoltaic system provides enough electricity to power the facility. Other green building features of the facility include a geothermal cooling system, a solar hot water heating system, water efficient plumbing and a clay roof tile “cool roof.”
COMMENT: Ideally park buildings are not only “Green” in terms of energy usage, but also in terms of aesthetics, blending into the landscape. Remember all of the criticisms of Mission 66 on aesthetic grounds. The same buildings were probably deficient in energy sustainability. We are getting better, and I have seen a lot of solar panels in the parks. (By the way, I recently installed a solar panel on top of my RV.) (This is a perhaps-not-so-clever attempt to hide the fact from you my RV itself is a major gas-guzzler. And I know, you weren’t fooled!)
One of the great lessons in our weeks of studying the National Parks is that nothing has come easy in the development of the parks. Not only are there “antagonists” fighting against the parks, but among the park admirers there are sometimes conflicting opinions. I’m thinking of this stump from a very big and old tree that I saw in Silver Lake State Park Campground last summer in Vermont. (The campground serves visitors to nearby Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.
I wondered why the tree had been sawed down, and I asked the park ranger. He explained that it had been blocking the light from newly-installed solar panels over the restrooms. I suppose it was a victory for sustainability, but in the spirit of the Land Ethic, I wonder if the tree regarded its own demise in the same light!