The lighting at the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the National Mall at night is intended to be low and moody. Instead, much of it is out altogether.
Many of the memorial wall panels bearing the names of the more than 36,000 Americans who died in the war are in the dark. So, too, are seven of the 19 stainless steel statues of service members at the 31-year-old memorial.
At the nearby Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, so many lights are not working or blocked by trees that it is difficult to read inscriptions on walls or even to see a few steps ahead. Fountains meant to glow at night instead gurgle in the dark.
For several months earlier this year at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the face of the statue of the civil rights giant was not illuminated at night, despite visitors raising the issue with park rangers and the National Park Service. The lighting of King’s face was only repaired following a Washington Post inquiry to the Park Service in early October.
The lapse in upkeep and repairs at some of the most prominent memorials in Washington and at the more than 400 national park properties across the country comes as the Trump administration has reduced the agency’s staff by roughly 25 percent and withheld millions of dollars in funding.
Advocates for the national parks say that maintaining and restoring NPS sites has fallen by the wayside as the administration focuses on the president’s projects, including constructing the White House ballroom, overhauling East Potomac Golf Links, painting — and repainting — the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and building a triumphal arch. The Park Service’s annual budget of about $3.2 billion, they say, is being squeezed to pay for these projects.
“The Park Service should be doing their due diligence to be good stewards of these resources. And we know from the construction projects that have been proposed and have been rammed through, many of which are now in the courts, that they’re not doing that,” said Charles Birnbaum the founding president and CEO of the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation, a parks advocacy and education group.
The White House sees it differently.
“No other president has done more to beautify our Nation’s interior than President Trump,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in an emailed statement. “From restoring our treasured landmarks after suffering years of abuse and vandalism, to cleaning our parks and the Reflecting Pool and equipping the White House with a much-needed Helipad and the finest Ballroom anywhere in the world, President Trump’s bold vision is ensuring the People’s House and our Nation’s Capital will be properly glorified and remain in excellent condition for generations to come.”
A National Park Service spokesperson said the agency was aware of the lighting outages at the Korean War Veterans Memorial and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and “is working with its partners” to address the issues. “The National Park Service is committed to maintaining the memorials on the National Mall so they remain safe, accessible and welcoming while honoring the people and events they commemorate,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Early in his second term, Trump issued an executive order directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to pursue efforts “to beautify and make safe and prosperous the District of Columbia.” Some of those projects, including restoring nonworking fountains, have been welcomed by District residents. But many others are unpopular and have faced fierce opposition.
Last month, a federal judge ordered an inquiry into whether Justice Department lawyers misled the court on Trump’s plans to redevelop the East Potomac golf course. The judge also barred the administration from removing trees from the course without court approval.
Late Thursday night, another federal judge halted any work from beginning on the construction of the arch for two weeks while she considers legal challenges.
When they take control of Congress in January, Democrats have signaled they are likely to launch investigations into Trump’s D.C. projects such as the Reflecting Pool renovation, his takeover of the Kennedy Center and the White House ballroom.
The National Park System has a $24 billion backlog of maintenance projects that have yet to be funded, with major repairs to roads, buildings and water systems being the most costly. Congress provided $1.9 billion annually to address that backlog in the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act. But that funding expired on Sept. 30 and Congress is considering whether to reauthorize it.
The backlog of repairs needed at Park Service properties precedes Trump, of course. And every administration has to make spending choices that leave some projects in the lurch.
But national parks advocates say that the spending on Trump’s D.C. construction projects and beautification efforts is diverting money that would be much better spent on pressing needs around the country. And, they say, the capital region is getting a makeover while parks outside the Beltway are left to fend for themselves.
For example, the Park Service as of late May had directed at least $76 million in revenue from entrance fees at national parks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite toward fixing fountains in D.C., internal documents showed. The funds also paid for a $1.6 million fireworks display on the Fourth of July, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
John Garder, senior budget director with the National Parks Conservation Association, said the administration has diverted “tens of millions and probably more of visitor fees and other funds” to Washington, D.C.
“Some appear to be for these high-profile vanity projects which are legally dubious, to say the least, and illegal in some cases,” he said. “Others are for projects like the gilding of statues at the Arlington Memorial Bridge that are not the highest priority.”
Last week, The Post reported the administration has budgeted $1.2 million for removing trees at East Potomac Golf Links as part of the president’s plan to redevelop the property into a top-tier course, an effort that many local golfers have criticized as unneeded and unwanted. The funding for the tree removal is also coming from visitor fees collected at the nation’s biggest national parks.
At the back of the Park Service’s queue for repairs are roughly 1,500 maintenance projects worth about $400 million, which the agency has deemed low priority for receiving funding, according to an internal agency database published by the Center for Western Priorities, an advocacy group.
In D.C., that includes some basic electrical updates, maintenance of the parking payment stations at Thompson Boat Center on the Potomac River and preserving photos and records related to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Around the country, projects unlikely to receive funding include emergency repairs at Cape Lookout National Seashore to fix a ferry dock for tourists visiting a lighthouse, fixing a septic system for staff and visitors at Glacier National Park and purchasing bear-proof trash cans at Yosemite. Also unlikely to receive funding is a campground in Nevada’s Great Basin National Park that burned down in 2016 and has yet to be fixed.
The Atlantic and Associated Press first reported on the agency database.
But what has angered and confounded critics is that even as the Trump administration cuts NPS programs and funding elsewhere, it has proposed a $10 billion Presidential Capital Stewardship Program that it said “would improve safety and accessibility, rehabilitate historic buildings and landscapes, and enhance architectural grandeur so that Americans can once again be proud of the Nation’s capital.”
Advocates for the national parks say the administration’s proposal ignores the backlog of repairs needed elsewhere and provides no clarity or specificity about how that money could be spent in the D.C. region and what projects it would be used to fund. And they note that even while money has been diverted to the president’s projects in D.C., ongoing problems at places such as the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the FDR Memorial are not being addressed.
Legislators do not seem inclined to support that $10 billion tranche of funding for the Park Service in the capital region. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Oregon), the top Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees the Park Service’s budget, told The Post in April that he supports investments in Washington infrastructure but not a new fund that would not be subject to Congress’s traditional oversight. “I’m a ‘hell no’ on giving Trump a blank check for vanity projects,” Merkley said.
Even if Congress approves a budget for the Park Service without the $10 billion set aside for projects in the capital region, advocates for national parks such as Garder from the NPCA, say any spending it authorizes should come with clear directives.
“Appropriators would do well to produce a final bill that includes some strict guidelines so that the administration has a statutory obligation to provide the level of transparency that’s needed,” he said.
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