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Going down the drain - 26 February, 2008
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A Journal News editorial
Going down the drain
Duct tape can only do so much.
That's what state park employees have resorted to using, along with the ever-handy foam in a can, to keep some structures standing in New York's sprawling state park system.
Local parks bear the scars of a state system with little money to maintain infrastructure:
- The deep end of Rockland Lake State Park's pool - shut for more than a decade because it didn't meet health department standards - was the scene a near-riot during a 2002 heat wave as a frustrated crowd was kept from a dip in the deteriorating section.
- Brown water flows from the taps at the still-under-repair Bear Mountain Inn, a side effect of a desperately needed water-treatment upgrade and dredging needed at Queensboro Lake and lagoon.
- Worn roads and bathrooms need fixes at Franklin Delano Roosevelt State Park.
Those are among the ills state officials hope to address in Gov. Spitzer's $100 million budget plan for Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation in fiscal 2008-09 - more than triple what the commission's received in recent years. The added funding aims to counteract the deleterious effects of so many lean budgets. The penny-pinching has left the state parks - with such major tourism draws as Lake Sebago and Bear Mountain in the Lower Hudson Valley, and Niagra Falls at the northern tip - in abysmal shape.
Lots of neglect
Carol Ash, New York state commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and her team recalled their recent tours of New York's state parks and historic sites during a recent Editorial Board visit. They described crumbling cabins and way-too-leaning lean-tos that are offered campers. "We actually charge people to stay in these things," Ash said, pointing to a photograph of a rental cabin at Allegany State Park that had stones stacked up to support the porch and foundation, boarded windows and a worn interior.
Ash talked about Department of Environmental Conservation consent orders demanding fixes at dams, water and sewer treatment plants for various parks. When one arm of the state has to cite another, well, that's embarrassing. Then there were the bathrooms. Visit after visit, parks staff were shown broken toilets in grimy facilities that left lines of patrons at camp sites waiting. "We dubbed it the 'potty tour,'" said state Parks Director of Communications Eileen Larrabee, who joined Ash and Palisades Interstate Parks Commission Executive Director James Hall in pitching the budget. The proposed $100 million - along with another $47.2 million in capital funding from other sources - would be the first swipe at an up to $650 million list of "urgent critical" repairs at parks and historic sites throughout the state. "Money for capital projects is just a tiger to get ahold of," Ash said.
Used by 55 million
At sites around the state, the parks system falls short of meeting basic needs: potable water, environmentally safe sewer systems, passable roads, and of course, basic bathroom facilities for an estimated 55 million annual visitors. How did it get so bad? Years of a budget stuck around $30 million, and dwindling federal funding, from $23 million in the early 1970s to a paltry $1 million this year. The Pataki administration gets praise for open-space acquisition, but any property owner knows the investment costs don't stop with the purchase. We've fallen far behind as stewards of this precious state land.
Ash has noted that the capital needs are prioritized, with health and safety projects at the top. Ash is also making sure the state parks don't rely just on government. She's pushing for every state park to create a "Friends" group - like the Friends of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve that has supplied such stellar stewardship of the vast Pocantico Hills property for a decade-plus. "They get the showy stuff, pavilions" and other beautification items that would draw donors, Ash said of future "Friends" charities, while the state money will go to get sewer treatment plants up to code and broken toilets back flushing.
A Journal News editorial
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A View for Generations
Palisades Interstate
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Bear Mountain
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