Budget cuts and bathrooms: An ongoing struggle at US national parks

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, CO ‒ Struggling to find a restroom at some National Park Service sites this spring? You're in good company.

Need relief in Utah’s Arches National Park? Some toilets are closed. Visiting King’s Canyon in California? Better hope it’s not a Tuesday. Need to make a pit stop at Maryland's Greenbelt Park? That’s a no-go.

Citing staffing issues as a result of President Donald Trump‘s budget cuts, buyouts and layoffs across the National Park Service, multiple national parks have closed their toilets and visitor centers. While courts have rolled back some of the February cuts, roughly 2,400 to 2,500 staff positions have been lost, according to a preliminary estimate by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.

• Trump has announced that parks will hire more seasonal workers than normal this summer, but park users across the country are already reporting intermittent staffing problems, maintenance issues and closed restrooms.

• Users and park supporters say the closures, both actual and potential, will likely reshape how people visit national parks this year, keeping more visitors closer to gateway towns and out of more remote areas. Park leaders say they're committed to protecting the "evolving" needs of visitors, and say they're confident parks will remain memorable and meaningful places to visit.

At the Glacier Gorge trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park, Maria Miglioretti, 56, watched as her cousin tightened her laces in preparation for a snowshoe hike up the Alberta Falls trail on April 15.

Miglioretti and her husband moved to Colorado about two years ago after he retired from the U.S Navy, and she said they frequently visit national parks. Because they are retired, she said, they can use parks like Rocky Mountain in the middle of the week, avoiding the crowds.

But she worries what the summer will bring, especially in those parks where the toilets are only cleaned once a week. She said she would feel bad using those parks this summer, knowing her presence might cause extra work for the stretched-thin staff.

“The parks are already overcrowded and understaffed,” Miglioretti said. “I don’t know how they’re going to keep up with the toilets and the trash.”
Staffing limitations have left wildlife biologists cleaning toilets

Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar echoed her concerns.

"When you talk about the cuts with seasonal labor that keeps the bathrooms at our national parks clean or provide services to the millions of visitors who come to those places, it's a real thing and it's going to affect a lot of national parks, especially in rural America, where the tourism that comes in through those gateway communities to the national parks are going to be very much affected," Salazar told USA TODAY. "That's why I think these cuts that the current president's proposing are wrongheaded."

A USA TODAY survey of all 496 National Park Service units ‒ from the mighty Grand Canyon to the tiny Sand Creek Massacre site ‒ shows at least eight of them have warned of closures or staffing limitations impacting access to toilets and visitor centers. Experts say there's a growing tension between Trump's cuts and the parks' overwhelming popularity. An estimated 332 million people visited national parks last year, a new record.

In an effort to minimize disruptions for visitors, the current Interior secretary, Doug Burgum, has ordered park service staff to keep open as many amenities as possible, in some cases requiring scientists, park rangers and supervisors to help clean toilets. Burgum's order says park officials can't close toilets or other amenities without the express permission of his office, stripping park superintendents of that discretion.

At Yosemite National Park in California, that means staff from across the park, from IT workers to archeologists to wildlife biologists, have been asked to help clean campgrounds and toilets, according to the website sfgate.com. Park officials earlier this year delayed opening campground reservations while they scrambled to figure out staffing.

In a statement, Interior Department spokeswoman Rachel Pawlitz said park employees are "dedicated problem solvers" who will work hard to ensure a quality visitor experience.

"It’s not unusual or unique to this year for questions to come up about staffing or for the staffing needs to fluctuate," she said. "As in other years, we are working hard to make this another great year for visitors."

Conflict between reduced staffing and visitor expectations

Kristen Brengel of the National Parks Conservation Association said the Trump administration's decisions led directly to the conflict between staffing and visitor expectations.

"This is a problem they made themselves," Brengel said. "They can fix some of it, but simply telling the park service they have to stay open isn't magically going to create people who work there."

Brengel and Salazar said Trump's actions in cutting park service staff make little sense given that the president encouraged Congress to pass, and then signed, the Great American Outdoors Act during his first term, pouring $1.3 billion over five years into improvements in public lands, including restroom replacements at many national parks.

National parks for decades have battled billions of dollars worth of maintenance backlogs, and the GAOA has spurred significant work to build or repair amenities. The National Park Service has more than 5,500 miles of paved roads, 17,000 miles of trails and 24,000 buildings, including toilets and visitor centers.

"This money is being spent to fix our parks. The problem is that the park service knows in order to keep these facilities looking great, they need staff to maintain them," Brengel said. "How could they possibly want these assets destroyed because they can't staff them and maintain them right now?"