Here’s what happens when there’s no regulation
by digby
People just have to wreck everything:
The federal government’s partial shutdown has granted outdoorsy travelers free access to national parks that usually charge up to $30 per carload. And with that freedom, some locals say, has come a surge in scofflaw activity and a ticklish toilet situation, especially at Joshua Tree National Park.
At Joshua Tree, Death Valley and Channel Islands national parks — all within 220 miles of Los Angeles — conditions vary as widely as the geography.
All three parks are open, and their lodgings and campgrounds are open, as are other services generally run by park concessionaire companies. But all visitor centers and many restrooms are closed and many other services have been disrupted, including bathroom maintenance and trash collection.
Those conditions pose a particular peril in Joshua Tree, locals say, because these are some of the busiest days of the year.
Rangers at Joshua Tree counted 284,398 visitors in December 2017, most in the second half of the month. Since the federal government’s partial shutdown began on Dec. 22, new arrivals are free to ignore the usual entrance fee of $30 per car.
The park’s visitor centers, water filling stations and dump stations are also closed as part of the shutdown. But its trails, campgrounds and waterless toilets, also known as vault toilets, remain open, even though there are no federal employees to maintain them.
That situation — and the multiplying trash — has spurred volunteerism, but it also has many locals nervous.
“I’ve gone through 500 rolls of toilet paper,” said Rand Abbott, a Joshua Tree rock-climber and volunteer who started restocking park toilets on Saturday, the first full day of the shutdown.
“And I’ve been emptying all the trash cans that are there and putting bags in. And then I’ve been giving out trash bags to people. I’ve probably put 60 hours in.”
Abbott, a 54-year-old Marine Corps veteran and paraplegic who is well known in the climbing community, said he has also been trying to talk visitors out of illegal fires, illegal parking, littering and other forbidden activities.
Some comply right away, but “70% of the people I’m running into are extremely rude,” Abbott said. “Yesterday, I had my life threatened two times. It’s crazy in there right now.”
Joe De Luca, a sales associate at Nomad Ventures in downtown Joshua Tree, agreed.
“It’s a free-for-all in there. Absolutely ridiculous,” De Luca said.
Besides the toilets and trash, he cited breakdowns in the campground reservation system, illegal camping practices and visitors stringing Christmas lights from delicate Joshua trees that they are supposed to leave untouched.
In the shop, De Luca said, he and colleagues are emphasizing leave-no-trace practices and recommending WAG bags — “a bag that you go to the bathroom in [and carry out] for sensitive areas where there are no bathrooms.”
De Luca thinks “the park needs to shut their gates.”
“We’re seeing so much damage. New Year’s is coming up and that’s going to be crazy.”
This is, of course, the responsibility of the humans who perpetrate the acts. But it’s also why we have a government. In order to protect the society for the greater good there needs to be some regulations that require people not to behave like primitive beasts.
By the way, this is what will happen on a permanent basis if the anti-regulatory, anti-environment right wing zealots have their way. Huzzah.
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Buckle up everybody. It’s going to be a very bumpy New Year …
cheers — digby
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