In a normal year, more than 4 million people flock to Yellowstone National Park, half of them during the summer months. They fill visitor centers, gift shops and lodges, which are staffed by thousands of workers who come from all over the world and live within the park. And they pack boardwalks to gaze at Old Faithful, one of the world’s largest predictable erupting geysers, and Grand Prismatic, a widely recognizable neon blue, yellow and orange hot spring.America’s first national park features more than 1,000 miles of hiking trails and some 300 backcountry campsites, but it is those magnificent geological features that draw most visitors, creating bottlenecks that can be an annoyance in peak season. But this year, as parks open back up amid a still-unfolding pandemic, they present serious risks.“How do we successfully manage 11,000 people on a boardwalk at Old Faithful every day?” Cameron Sholly, Yellowstone’s superintendent, asked during an April 21 conference call. At that point, it was a hypothetical. This week, Yellowstone partially reopened for the first time since March. Pictures quickly surfaced of crowds of out-of-state visitors gathered in close proximity. Memorial Day weekend is typically the start to summer, which means it will only get tougher. Mike Keller, general manager of Yellowstone National Park Lodges, estimated only 10 to 15 of the approximately 140 visitors he observed at Old Faithful at one point on Thursday morning were wearing protective masks. The cold and rain kept bigger crowds at bay that day, but the three-day holiday weekend is expected to draw scores of visitors to Yellowstone and other national parks.It’s the kind of situation that advocacy groups like the National Parks Conservation Association hoped to avoid, urging the Trump administration to close parks and not reopen them until it could guarantee the safety of visitors and staff. “We get it, people feel like they want to be outside,” said Kristen Brengel, NPCA’s vice president of government affairs. “But we want to make sure they are safe.” The reality, she added, is that national parks draw big crowds and many sites have staffing shortages because the pandemic kept them from hiring seasonal rangers. That means fewer people to manage and disperse large crowds.“I just want to make sure everyone knows what they are getting themselves into,” she said. Slow To Close, Quick To ReopenThe Interior Department, the parent agency of the National Park Service, has faced backlash for its handling of parks during the COVID-19 crisis, much as it did during the 2018-19 government shutdown. In early March, as cases of COVID-19 began to balloon in the U.S. and private businesses were forced to close their doors, the agency resisted shuttering national parks and monuments. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt joined Trump in downplaying the coronavirus threat, telling staff in a pair of memos that “this virus is NOT currently spreading widely in the United States” and “Americans don’t need to change their day-to-day lives but should stay informed and practice good hygiene.” It wasn’t until mid-March that Interior gave park superintendents the authority to modify and suspend operations as they saw necessary to address COVID-19. Local officials responded by quickly closing dozens of sites around the country, including Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Yosemite. For the majority of parks that remained open, many with limited operations, NPS waived entrance fees ― a move it said supported social distancing outdoors but that sent visitors flocking to iconic parks like Grand Canyon and Zion, forcing additional closures.Late last month, as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 approached 50,000, Trump signaled that Americans would soon be able to enjoy America’s parks again. “We will have them open quickly,” he said during an April 22 Earth Day speech. In recent weeks, Bernhardt has toured a number of park sites as they’ve ramped up operations and taken to Twitter and radio interviews to assure the public that the administration is working rapidly to expand access.
.@YellowstoneNPS and @GrandTetonNPS will begin welcoming the public back next week! pic.twitter.com/EBwq8Linwk
— Secretary David Bernhardt (@SecBernhardt) May 13, 2020Yet it wasn’t until this week, days before the busy Memorial Day weekend, that park managers received guidance from Interior on resuming operations, managing crowds and promoting social distancing, according to internal documents HuffPost obtained. Those guidelines indicate parks will rely heavily on signage at entry points and heavy traffic sites about the importance of complying with social distancing guidelines. Parks employees should encourage visitors to adhere to those recommendations, but are not authorized to enforce wearing masks, the guidance says. One NPS ranger who requested anonymity to speak candidly told HuffPost he feels the administration is moving dangerously fast and is “extremely worried” that parks could become ground zero for a surge in new cases. The park he works at has a small stockpile of personal protective equipment, but he estimated it would run out in two weeks once the site fully reopens.“I feel like I’m going to get it eventually,” he said of COVID-19. “I just don’t feel there is any way for me to avoid it.”- This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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