This year’s Most Endangered Rivers report from American Rivers makes one thing clear: It is not sustainable for a single river to support 36 million people.

That’s the situation today for the Colorado River. Though millions use its water, it is already so over-tapped that it now dries up to a trickle before reaching the sea. Climate change and population growth have the potential to make the situation worse. The Bureau of Reclamation’s own report (Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study, December 2012) stresses that there is not enough water to meet current demands across the basin, let alone support future demand increases. Scientists predict climate change will reduce the Colorado River’s flow by 10 to 30 percent by 2050. We can’t stay on the path we’re on now if we want this iconic river and its surrounding parks and communities to remain healthy.

That’s why, now more than ever, it’s time to talk about how best to conserve the river while ensuring our protected lands remain unimpaired for future generations.

Images of this iconic river are entwined with the majestic national parks it travels through, from the meadows and rich valleys of Rocky Mountain to the dramatic vistas of the Grand Canyon. A Park Service brochure of the region captures so much of it so well for me:

The national parks of the Colorado River basin set aside the best of the river corridor’s most scenic, natural, and cultural wonders to serve the country’s heart and spirit … Dinosaur National Monument’s cathedral-like canyons where the Green and Yampa Rivers meet … Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park’s steep, narrow gash through some of the hardest rock on Earth … Curecanti National Recreation Area’s vast blue shimmer in the Colorado high country … Canyonlands National Park’s meandering gulches in the heart of Utah’s red rock country … the stark meeting of big water and big desert in Glen Canyon and Lake Mead National Recreation Area … more than 2,000 sandstone arches at Arches National Park … and the breathtaking, mile-deep descent into geologic time that is Grand Canyon National Park.

These parks and recreation areas depend on the river for their health and vitality, and in turn create economic boons for surrounding communities throughout the basin. Yet, it is a nearly impossible challenge for the National Park Service to fulfill its mandate to conserve resources in these parks due to ongoing water management issues. The various federal agencies managing the river have aimed to provide a reliable supply of water to this rapidly growing region of the country but haven’t significantly considered how to incorporate the protection of parklands. Americans recognize the special character of these wild places and protect them for present and future generations. It is now my turn, and yours, to speak up on behalf of national parks to ensure these southwestern jewels remain for our children and theirs.

In their report, American Rivers points to the need for Congress to fund programs that will encourage better water management of the Colorado River for the 21st century. NPCA couldn’t agree more. All concerned agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Park Service must be involved in the development of a long-term, basin-wide framework to proactively manage water flows to address the needs of surrounding cities, agriculture, hydropower, recreation, and environmental resources. Full participation with an open, transparent process and adequate funding are both crucial to the future of this great American waterway.

NPCA’s Colorado River program is working to incorporate healthy river flows and healthy national parklands into the land- and water-management discussions more fully. These protected natural areas are part of larger landscapes and ecosystems that require collaboration among disparate stakeholders to protect. We work with federal, state, and local agencies to promote proactive measures for long-term restoration and protection of these public lands and waters. We believe that by highlighting the profound impact river management and continued diversion has on our national parks—places that are both beloved for their beauty and valued for their economic leverage—we can engage a diverse network of voices that will advocate to save the Colorado River.

For more information, see our recent press statement on American Rivers’ Most Endangered River and learn more about NPCA’s Colorado River program. You can take action for the Colorado River on the American Rivers website, and learn more by reading the Most Endangered Rivers report and watching the video below.

Kevin was familiar enough with the wide-open skies of the Petrified Forest and the breathtaking views of its Painted Desert—how the captivating pinks and purples and all manner of blues, greens, and grays, seem to shift and brighten with every subtle change of sunlight. He was struck by the size of the ranch, though he wasn’t shocked; forage is so sparse in the desert, any cowhand needs a lot of land to graze just one or two steer.

What Kevin wasn’t expecting to see came at the end of the tour, when the group gathered in the waning daylight under a group of cottonwood trees. There, he spotted what at first glance appeared to be a large bird hunched quietly in a high branch. Kevin did a double-take as the lithe creature slowly uncurled and looked down at the group below. It was the first time he had ever seen a porcupine in the wild—a magical moment. The glimpse of a desert animal coming into view after a hot, dusty day is just one of those little surprises that makes this part of the country so special.

Fortunately, after years of private ownership, more people will soon be able to experience the McCauley Ranch. Shortly, the property will officially become part of Petrified National Park, thanks to an elaborate deal brokered between the family who owned the land, The Conservation Fund (an essential partner that now temporarily owns the ranch), and a generous anonymous donor. Oh, and Kevin, of course, who was there throughout the process as negotiations went back and forth, and back and forth again, over the value of this irreplaceable and mineral-rich slice of desert.

The Park Service has been waiting nearly nine years for the opportunity to acquire privately held pieces of land like the McCauley Ranch that are surrounded by the national park boundary, to fully incorporate them into the park. NPCA sometimes refers to these pockets of private land as “inholdings.” Inholdings often become sites for trophy homes and other incompatible development that can change the whole character of the surrounding parkland. In 2004, Congress voted to expand the boundaries of Petrified Forest National Park, but didn’t put any funding behind the expansion. As a result, some landowners have given up on future government funding, and have hitched their hopes for sale or lease to potash mining companies and other mineral development operations.

In this context, the effort to save the McCauley Ranch is a major victory. “The work I do is often about fighting battles that seem to never end, and even hard-earned victories can prove to be temporary,” Kevin told me. “It is just so satisfying to know we could come up with an agreement that worked for everyone, so that this land will be added to the park system forever.”

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Korematsu’s story is not widely known, though three state governments are helping to change that by declaring January 30 Fred Korematsu Day—the first such holiday honoring an Asian American.

The United States officially entered World War II after Japanese fighters bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941; the country had been at war for more than a year when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 giving U.S. armed forces broad powers to incarcerate anyone in the name of military defense. The government overwhelmingly used this power to imprison Japanese Americans for having “foreign enemy ancestry” (though German Americans, Italian Americans, and Jewish Americans were also detained, in smaller numbers). Ultimately, the military kept 120,000 innocent people under armed guard in isolated areas of the West, forcing them to leave their homes, businesses, possessions, and normal lives behind—for years.

When the incarcerations began, Korematsu chose to defy the executive order and live as an ordinary American, changing his name and even undergoing minor plastic surgery on his eyes in an attempt to hide his ethnicity. Still, he was arrested in May 1942, convicted in a federal court, and held against his will at a “relocation center” until the end of the war.

“Fred was not interested in a pardon from the government; instead, he always felt that it was the government who should seek a pardon from him and from Japanese Americans for the wrong that was committed.” – Kathryn Korematsu

Korematsu maintained his innocence and appealed his arrest all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled against him in 1944, claiming the imprisonments were a “military necessity.” His arrest was a black mark on his record for decades. Finally, in 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed a special commission on the incarcerations that ultimately determined in 1983 that the government had imprisoned thousands of Japanese Americans based on racism and prejudice, not military necessity. In 1982, Peter Irons, a political science professor at the University of California, uncovered secret government documents while conducting research. The documents proved that the Justice Department had knowingly suppressed evidence showing that the incarcerated Americans were innocent of wrongdoing and posed no military threat to justify their imprisonment. The new evidence and the presidential commission’s findings allowed a legal team to reopen Korematsu’s case and overturn his criminal conviction in 1983, more than four decades after his arrest.

During the litigation, the government offered Korematsu a pardon in exchange for dropping his lawsuit. His wife, Kathryn Korematsu, described his reaction this way: “Fred was not interested in a pardon from the government; instead, he always felt that it was the government who should seek a pardon from him and from Japanese Americans for the wrong that was committed.”

Korematsu spent the later years of his life protesting the government detention of suspected combatants at Guantanamo Bay after 9/11, filing amicus briefs on behalf of Muslims incarcerated without trials.

The National Park Service has played an important role telling the story of Japanese-American incarceration during World War II. Three of the ten “relocation camps” at Manzanar, Minidoka, and Tule Lake are now parts of the National Park System, though the camp where Korematsu spent most of his incarceration, the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah, was mostly stripped of its buildings and artifacts after the war when the government auctioned off much of the land and property there. Some items are preserved in a local museum, and the site is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

Learn more about Korematsu’s legacy on the Korematsu Institute website, and read a recent story in National Parks magazine about some of the remarkable works of art created by Japanese Americans in the camps, written by the daughter of two internees.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Tucked into the corners where the Utah and Colorado state lines meet is an exceptional landscape where the Old West stayed young. It is a land of open skies and plains, rugged canyons, and the vibrant Yampa and Green Rivers. And in the heart of it all is Dinosaur National Monument.

The monument was originally designated in 1915 to preserve its world-renowned Jurassic dinosaur fossils, and then expanded in 1938 to include the Yampa and Green Rivers, canyons, and viewsheds. But the pristine nature of this uniquely beautiful place is not assured. It takes work and advocacy to make sure it is not spoiled by inappropriate neighboring developments. While the park itself is protected from oil and gas production, these types of operations on adjacent property could have a major negative and permanent impact on Dinosaur National Monument.   

That is why late last year, when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced an upcoming oil and gas development lease sale for 5,000 acres of land adjacent to the monument, we knew we had to act to preserve the long-term integrity of this park—and help prevent a dangerous precedent for this type of incompatible land use near national parks. In December, NPCA and The Wilderness Society submitted a joint protest of the lease sale and asked the BLM to evaluate how development would impact the resources and values of Dinosaur National Monument before offering the land for lease.

Based on previous experience, we knew that oil and gas exploration and development adjacent to Dinosaur National Monument could cause air and water pollution, increased noise, loss of wildlife habitat, a decrease in visitors, and numerous environmental impacts from creating new roads to handle the increased traffic associated with drilling for oil and gas. We also requested that BLM fully consider and incorporate National Park Service concerns into the leasing process to ensure that the landscape values they hold in common are protected.

On Monday, January 14, 2013, Dinosaur National Monument and all who visit there scored a victory when BLM posted a notice that they have deferred the approximately 5,000 acres from their upcoming oil and gas lease sale in February. But, unfortunately, it is not clear whether this is a permanent victory. This is not the first time BLM has considered parcels near Dinosaur National Monument for lease, followed by protests, appeals, and deferral. NPCA and our partners will be meeting with the BLM and pressing them to make a broader commitment to managing oil and gas development near the monument and to specify what the deferral really means and how long it will last. We will also encourage the BLM to make a similar decision to defer other oil and gas lease parcels near the monument included in a proposed May 2013 oil and gas lease sale. 

With so many important resources to protect inside the monument boundaries, it is critical that adjacent land management is done thoughtfully and with full consideration of potential impacts to the monument. Dinosaur National Monument was created to protect this beautiful river corridor and its ancient dinosaur fossils while providing the highest-quality visitor experience for those traveling to western Colorado and northeastern Utah to see it. Those visitors should not be forced to share National Park Service roads with massive trucks or to see this special place degraded from inappropriate development just outside its boundaries.

The arch is known as a “pothole arch” because of the way it formed. Water pooled over time behind the arch, gradually carving out the formation from the soft sandstone. Enjoy Walt’s full, uncropped image below. 

You can share your favorite national park image or see some of the other photos and ideas people have posted using the “Shared Story” feature on NPCA’s website.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Shiprock, a majestic rock formation of great religious and cultural importance to the Navajo, could once be seen from Mesa Verde National Park, 162 miles away. But now, thanks to air pollution, Shiprock’s visibility is often limited to just 20 miles. Losing sight of this spiritual symbol is just one unexpected way that coal-fired power plants have affected the Navajo and Hopi communities, on top of the more common health and air quality concerns like asthma and haze that affect people who live with constant airborne pollution.

NPCA’s eloquent new video, A Sacred Trust: Threatened National Parks and Native Lands, elevates the profile of native voices advocating for better air quality in the Southwest. 

Two remarkable women inspired the video when they realized that rural Navajo and Hopi families are sorely affected by pollution from coal-fired power plants, yet their concerns are not heard by decision-makers in their tribal capital or our nation’s capital.

One is Donna House, a member of the Navajo Nation, who joined a group of air activists NPCA organized last year in Washington, DC, to lobby on regional haze rule issues. Involved with a Navajo environmental group, Donna is especially concerned about the impact that coal-fired power plants have on the health of the Navajo people. Donna teamed up with NPCA’s clean air counsel, Stephanie Kodish, to interview and record people across the Navajo Nation and nearby Hopi Reservation who are impacted by pollution. Donna works with the community group Diné CARE whose members conducted the outreach and interviews for the video (Diné is the Navajo word for Navajo, and CARE stands for Citizens Against Ruining our Environment).

The video has been compiled from hundreds of hours of footage from committed Diné videographers and translators. Diné CARE also prepared a version designed with a Navajo audience in mind, to be distributed on the Nation. 

Videos and photos are a pale reflection of real-life experience on the Navajo Nation—the vast sky, the improbable rock formations, the endless driving across empty plains to get from here to there. The Nation is about half the size of New York State. Mostly high desert, the summers are hot and dry and the winters snowy and biting cold. The occasional storm or snowmelt makes travel on the many dirt roads problematic. Four beautiful, sacred peaks surround their homeland, as do many wonderful national parks. Four parks—Canyon de Chelly, Navajo Monument, Rainbow Bridge, and Hubble Trading Post—are entirely within the Nation.

The Navajo share a rich and complicated culture. Our work together, much like any cross-cultural effort, has required patience and a willingness to address differences so we can communicate beyond them.

One time, for instance, I met with a number of Navajo in an oversized hogan, a traditional dwelling, for an emotional community meeting.  Residents expressed anger about promises a local energy company had broken, like not getting electricity despite being close to a mine, and no road upkeep despite the needed bulldozers nearby. Some shared grief over relatives who suffered ailments they tie to the mine and power plant. At one point I was completely surprised when a speaker accused those of us visiting of not caring about what they said, because we weren’t recording or writing what the speakers were saying. We mistakenly assumed that writing notes would have been disrespectful!

Another time, Donna, Stephanie, and I were on a conference call to work out the budget for this video project, and Stephanie was curious why there was a line item called traditional food. Donna explained that it is expected when visiting someone, especially in a remote location, to bring along traditional food as a gift of good health and strength. I remembered this later when stopping at the Petrified Forest National Park gift shop before visiting a Navajo friend. I was able to purchase a 20 pound bag of Bluebird Flour, an essential ingredient in Navajo fry bread, and the gold standard of food gifts. My friend’s face lit up when she saw it, and she shared a long tale of the last time she got such a gift during an important ceremonial gathering at her home.

I hope you enjoy the video and share it with friends. We’ll feature it during campaigns to clean up this region’s air, such as early next year when we push for strong controls at the Navajo Generating Station. Fortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced stricter regulations on three power plants in Arizona. After you watch the video, you can thank the agency on our take action page.

It can be a shock to look out at the vast beauty of Zion National Park and spot a giant home built right in the middle of the scenic canyon landscapes that make this part of the country so iconic and inspirational.

Fortunately, one plot of land will be saved from this kind of inappropriate development. Earlier this month, Zion received an important gift: a 30-acre “inholding”—private property that is completely surrounded by park land—that will be donated to the National Park Service, thanks to an anonymous benefactor. Had the generous donor not secured this piece of land, it could have been sold to a private landowner who would have potentially built one or more trophy mansions there, spoiling the scenic and pristine beauty that draws nearly three million visitors to the park each year. There are plenty of scenic locations available in Utah for private homes, but inside a national park, especially one as prized for its unique beauty as Zion, should not be one.

Unfortunately, this single action does not save Zion, or dozens of other national parks across the nation, from inappropriate development. Already, expanded developments and at least one trophy home have been built on inholdings inside Zion, and other landowners are looking to liquidate private land inside the park.

Preventing these properties from being purchased by developers more interested in cashing in on the location than preserving the larger integrity of places like Zion was a primary reason the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was first created by Congress in 1965. The LWCF is a bipartisan commitment to set aside $900 million each year from offshore oil and gas drilling revenues—a fraction of the royalties collected—to invest in land and water conservation. Specifically, the fund is used to purchase land to protect national parks and other public lands from development, and to provide matching grants for state and local parks and recreation projects. These purchases, which are made at market prices with willing sellers, preserve the beauty and integrity of national parks and other treasured publicly owned places, which in turn attract visitors and power local and state economies. These purchases can ensure public access, facilitate or improve recreational opportunities, reduce threats from invasive species and fire, and otherwise act as a critical tool for land protection.

But for years Congress has diverted LWCF funds for other uses, leaving national parks in jeopardy. Due to this lack of funding, the National Park Service is not able to protect the nearly 12,000 private inholdings inside national park units across the country. And while there are some people out there, like the donor for the Zion land, that are able to help with specific pieces of property, there are nowhere near enough private donations to protect all of the properties from construction of luxury homes or other developments.

As the National Park System nears its 100th anniversary in 2016, it is an ideal time to restore the parks to their peak glory and to make sure they have the tools and funding in place to preserve them for generations of Americans to come. This means making sure there are enough LWCF funds to secure some of the many properties that are endangered.

In the nearly 50 years since LWCF was established, Congress has only fully funded it at $900 million once, and in the past ten years Congress dedicated less than 30 percent of the dollars promised to federal and state land acquisition while diverting $6.36 billion for other purposes. All of this is despite 88 percent of the American public supporting the use of LWCF funds to preserve our national parks, forests, and open spaces. In the 2013 budget, the Obama Administration proposed LWCF funding at $450 million while the U.S. House of Representatives proposed only $66 million in its budget—which, if approved, would be the lowest level in the history of LWCF.   

While we pause to celebrate the power of one person to make a tangible difference to protect the stunning beauty of Zion, we also know it will take a commitment of Congress to protect lands like this in the future. Want to make sure important programs like LWCF continue to receive funding? Take action by telling your members of Congress to support funding for LWCF.

It was a hot day. Soaring temperatures meant we had to start early in the morning and quit around 11 a.m.–but even in that short window, we accomplished some impressive work. A coalition of agencies and nonprofits worked together to clear a road that connects the west side of Saguaro National Park with Ironwood Forest National Monument. We pulled out 270 bags, at an average of 30 pounds each, for a total of more than four tons of this invasive weed. 

This work is increasingly important as buffelgrass spreads throughout the Sonoran Desert. Not only does the grass suppress native plants, it also increases the chances that wildfires will spread and destroy large swaths of desert life. Some 2,000 acres of land inside Saguaro National Park are affected by the weed, threatening the fragile ecosystem, including the health of the park’s stately namesake cactus. 

Learn more about the fight to protect Saguaro National Park from buffelgrass with this informative Park Service fact sheet (PDF, 6.6 MB). NPCA also produced a podcast (listen here) that explains the wildfire risk buffelgrass presents to the area, and why it’s important to remove. If you live in the Tucson region and missed last weekend’s event, you can find more ways to get involved through the Friends of Saguaro National Park and Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center.

-Kevin Dahl, Arizona Program Manager

NPCA is proud to be supporting five different events for National Public Lands Day. Please consider joining us! Just click the links below for descriptions and RSVP information:

• Repair park trails, clean up campgrounds and picnic areas, and plant native vegetation at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state.
• Take down barbed-wire fencing that can harm pronghorn antelope at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming (generously sponsored by Nature Valley).
• Remove invasive buffelgrass that threatens native plants near Saguaro National Park in Arizona.
• Remove cut lotus flowers from the ponds and perform other maintenance tasks at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington, DC.
• Restore trails and playgrounds, chop and stack wood, and maintain common areas at Greenbelt Park in Maryland.

Can’t make it to any of these events? Choose from hundreds of other volunteer opportunities around the country on the National Public Lands Day website.

As an added incentive, volunteers who participate in National Public Lands Day at a National Park Service site (as well as a number of other public sites) are eligible to receive a coupon to enter for free on another day of their choice within the next year. So, you not only get to enjoy the park and help out without paying any entrance fees, you also get to go back for another full day for free on any public lands site! Get more details on the National Public Lands Day website.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Learn More

Watch a video of NPCA’s Legislative Representative Alan Spears on the importance of cleaning up Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and some of the interesting objects volunteers have pulled out of the park’s beautiful ponds!

Clouded sulfur? Mormon fritillary? Hoary comma? I had never heard of such intriguing creatures before last month, but the Rocky Mountain BioBlitz put me in close proximity to all three. No fear factor or injuries sustained. Just a stroll in a sub-alpine meadow in an effort to inventory butterflies.

The BioBlitz at Rocky Mountain National Park on August 24-25 was the sixth of ten BioBlitzes that the National Geographic Society and the National Park Service are partnering on over ten years. During a 24-hour period, participants focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in specific areas of the park. Now, I’m an ecologist by training with an advanced degree, laboratory experiments, and fieldwork under my belt. But this was a great opportunity to step into an area I haven’t really experienced–the natural history field–where observation and monitoring of species in their environments leads to an understanding of their life and population cycles. So I stepped on the bus and became a citizen scientist, heading up to Hidden Valley with “the crowd-sourcers” to take observations and add them to the species inventory for the park.

After arriving and receiving an informative overview on butterflies in the park, I joined about a dozen other enthusiasts and we began our survey of the area. Out in the meadow, we soon caught sight of colorful wings in flight. Our group leader, a naturalist, soon had a Mormon Fritillary in hand for all to observe. As our eyes became accustomed to what to look for, we started catching sight of butterflies all around. As we would catch and examine the different varieties (none were harmed during this exercise), it became clear to me that our group ranged from people who could identify species on sight to those who had designed their backyards to attract these amazing animals to those who were just excited and interested in learning for the first time about butterflies in an up-close-and-personal context. All were participating and energized as we examined features like the camouflage patterns and wing scales that gave a sense of age, and talked about how skippers weren’t technically butterflies or moths but had their own group, and why commas (we found two species) are called commas (marks on the hind wings).

When the one-hour expedition ended, our group had identified seven species and spotted two or three more that we couldn’t catch for identification. Our leader told us this was a solid sampling for so late in the season, though it was definitely a limited subset of Rocky Mountain National Park’s 140 butterfly species, a diversity that rivals that of entire states.

As we headed back out of the park, the groups of citizen scientists talked enthusiastically about what they had seen and counted. The insect group* topped all for number of species found: 37. Everyone was caught up in the spirit of inquiry and investigation. For example, the butterfly group added another species to the birding group’s count, as we had spotted a hairy woodpecker, a species the birders had not seen on their walk about a quarter-mile away.

The BioBlitz ended the next day and the initial species count from the park’s discovery sites was 489, though a bald eagle soaring over the closing ceremony where the number was announced raised it to 490. Sampled species that may be new to the park included a lizard, nine insects, and 13 nonvascular plants (nonvascular plants include green algae, mosses, liverworts, and hornworts). More than 2,000 people contributed to these numbers, the majority volunteers.

As this event shows us, our parks are prime locations for wildlife and plant conservation. Inventorying and monitoring activities like these are essential to conservation efforts because they help us understand the diversity and health of life in our parks. Additionally, the 24 hours of counting gave people the opportunity to interact with nature in ways they can’t in our normal urban and suburban environments—and a large number of people attended, clearly hoping for the kind of transformative experience nature provides. National park citizen science efforts like the BioBlitz allow every American to contribute their time, curiosity, and knowledge to the parks while taking away the excitement of discovery and essence of nature that fuel us.

*Note: The groups counted butterflies separately from the rest of the insects specifically to continue adding information to the Rocky Mountain Butterfly Project database and selected a sampling site with that in mind. The insect group did not find any additional butterfly species.

Learn more

Watch NPCA’s video from the 2011 BioBlitz at Saguaro National Park:

 This story was cross-posted with National Parks Traveler.