If you’ve been planning a national park trip, the government shutdown likely won’t keep you from hitting the trails—at least for the time being. But with thousands of National Parks Service (NPS) employees expected to be furloughed, a number of park buildings and indoor attractions are set to close and former officials have warned that leaving other sites open will pose serious risks to the public, the parks themselves, and the wildlife living within them.
According to a contingency plan posted by the Department of the Interior Tuesday night, “park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors”—but “as a general rule, if a facility or area is locked or secured during non-business hours (buildings, gated parking lots, etc.) it should be locked or secured for the duration of the shutdown.”
That means buildings that require staffing—including visitor centers or sites like the Washington Monument—will be shuttered. Updates to park websites and social media accounts will also be put on pause with the exception of emergency communications.
If the shutdown persists, NPS may adjust the plans.
Read more: The Federal Government Has Shut Down. Here’s How It Could Affect Your Life
It’s unclear how long the situation will last, as Republicans and Democrats appeared to remain deadlocked in their showdown over government spending on Wednesday after failing to reach a deal to fund the government by the midnight deadline.
The last shutdown went on for 34 days and left behind damage to national parks that lasted much longer, fueling concerns over how the parks would fare in a similar situation nearly seven years later.
In a letter last week, a coalition of more than 35 former park superintendents pleaded for President Donald Trump to close all national parks in the event of a government shutdown to protect both the sites and visitors’ safety.
“Past shutdowns in which gates remained open with limited staff have hurt our parks: Iconic symbols cut down and vandalized, trash piled up, habitats destroyed, and visitor safety jeopardized,” they wrote. “If you don’t act now, history is not just doomed to repeat itself, the damage could in fact be much worse.”
How will the shutdown affect National Parks workers?
Under the contingency plan, 9,296 NPS employees out of a total of 14,500 who work at the agency are expected to be furloughed.
Among those who are set to remain on the job, 2,700 fall under the category of “excepted activity” that is “necessary to protect life and property.” These groups of workers include those involved in law enforcement and emergency response, border and coastal protection, fire suppression, and public health and safety, among other categories.
Also retaining their positions are 2,500 “exempted activity” workers whose “compensation is financed by a resource other than annual appropriations”—though NPS added that is “subject to the continued availability of funds.” The plan notes an unspecified amount of overlap between the two categories of workers, and that certain exempted employees may transition to an excepted or furloughed status.
Read more: Vance Warns Federal Layoffs Could Come Soon If Shutdown Drags On
The NPS Washington Support Office, the agency’s headquarters, will retain “no more than” 25 employees responsible for financing, budgeting, communication and human resources. Meanwhile, no more than five to ten staffers will remain working at each regional office.
Concerns about damage to parks
Former park officials and advocates have expressed fear that protected land will be damaged by visitors if sites are left partially open while thousands of workers are furloughed or fired, and therefore absent from supervising lands.
During the last government shutdown, which went on for more than a month between December 2018 and January 2019, national parks were vandalized and trash and human waste overflowed. At Joshua Tree National Park in California, multiple Joshua trees, which can be more than a century old, were chopped down. Also in California—the state with the most national parks—Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks were forced to close as a result of human waste and trash accumulation.
The former parks superintendents noted that national parks have already been impacted by the Trump Administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal budget and workforce in recent months as well.
“This summer, our parks were pushed to the brink by budget cuts and staff reductions,” they wrote, pointing to an August New York Times article that reported on strain and understaffing at more than 90 parks amid the cuts.
“If national parks are to be open to visitors when National Park employees are furloughed, these nascent issues from the summer season are sure to erupt. Leaving parks even partially open to the public during a shutdown with minimal—or no—park staffing is reckless and puts both visitors and park resources at risk.”
Read more: Who the Trump Administration Says Is ‘Essential’ in a Shutdown Is Raising Eyebrows
Theresa Pierno, President of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), raised similar concerns in a press release on Wednesday.
“The administration is once again putting our national parks and visitors at risk, effectively directing staff to open park gates and walk away,” said Pierno, whose organization seeks to defend the country’s national parks. “It’s not just irresponsible, it’s dangerous.”
“The damage that occurred in our national parks took months to recover from. And in some cases, the damage was irreparable. Unfortunately, Americans should expect much of the same this time around if this shutdown drags on,” the release said.
What happens if the shutdown goes on for a long time?
An extended government shutdown would have a “cascading effect” on national parks, Kym Hall, a former regional director at NPS, tells TIME.
Her primary concern in such a situation, she says, would be the safety risks posed to visitors going to parks that are not supervised as a result of staff being furloughed.
“I can’t even begin to imagine the safety risks this time of year in, say, Glacier National Park,” says Hall, who managed the park when she worked for NPS. “This is Bear hyperphasia season, which means they are more aggressive, they’re more in search of food as they prepare for the winter. That is the most dangerous time of year for visitors to be engaging with wildlife unmanaged.”
Americans, she says, won’t feel the impact of the situation “until they feel it, right, until somebody has an interaction with wildlife that could have been prevented. Somebody falls and there’s nobody to help them.”
Read more: Will Social Security Be Affected by the Government Shutdown?
Hall also stressed that the agency will be unable to provide services in locations it oversees that are not national parks, such as cultural sites like those in Washington, D.C., stretches of nationally protected seashore, and museum collections.
“It’s not just lakes and forests,” she says.
NPCA Senior Vice President Kristen Brengel tells TIME that the timing of the government shutdown is particularly bad for parks due to their popularity during the fall season.
“The ripple effects of a shutdown are great when it comes to parks, and it really always depends on the time of year,” she says.
In places like Acadia National Park in Maine or Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, she notes, it’s “leaf peeping season.” The NPCA has warned that the shutdown could carry significant costs in terms of lost revenue from park visitors, estimating that parks could lose $1 million a day and nearby communities as much as $80 million.
The last government shutdown occurred in the winter, typically a season that sees lower visitation than the fall. That’s why much of the damage to parks was seen in California, where in the winter it is quite popular to visit national parks sites, Brengel noted.
“It will take a much bigger toll on the local economies this time of year than it would if it were later in the year,” Brengel says.
It’s also hunting season this time of year in many parts of the country, she notes, which means there may be instances of unintentional or intentional poaching on protected lands, many of which border legal hunting territories.
“If someone in the hunting community doesn’t mean to cross the border into the parks, there will be fewer staff people at both agencies to monitor what’s going on this hunting season,” Brengel tells time.
“This is just a terrible time for parks.”
The post How the Government Shutdown Will Affect National Parks appeared first on TIME.
