According to a report from WABE, advocates for the national park at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area say that federal cuts to the park service are causing major strain.
“This park is chronically underfunded and understaffed,” said Brittany Jones, the executive director of the Chattahoochee National Park Conservancy. It’s a nonprofit that works hand-in-hand with local National Park Service employees to maintain the 7,000-acre park that winds through nine cities and four counties. The two share an office at Island Fork Park in Sandy Springs.
Jones said the National Park Service doesn’t have enough rangers or money at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area to provide what people expect out of a national park.
“It’s to no fault of the rangers or the National Park Service,” she said, adding that parks across the country have asked Congress for decades for money to little avail.
From backlogged trail maintenance to unfilled staff positions, the executive director noted that this park — like many — could use more help. Still, recent federal cuts have made the situation even more challenging.
Cuts Nationwide
The Chattahoochee park isn’t the only one feeling the hit.
While Georgia doesn’t have a national park, state residents are familiar with NPS’s many other properties around the state, such as the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, Cumberland Island National Seashore and Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
But nationwide, parks are struggling to figure out how to continue providing services with less funding.
Eboni Preston Goddard, the Southeast Regional Director & NPS Diversity Lead with the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit that advocates for national parks, said that through hiring freezes, early retirements, buyouts and layoffs, the National Park Service has lost about a quarter of its permanent staff.
“It’s really a staggering reduction that has led parks across the country, absolutely, in Georgia, scrambling to operate with really bare bones crews,” Goddard said.
Click here to read the full report from WABE.
