National Public Lands Day: Saturday September 27th, 2025

One of the downsides of all the drugs I take is I have to pee frequently (to reduce fluid on the lungs). So while traveling recently, we stopped at the Bonneville Dam in Oregon. What a site. (I'm glad we stopped there instead of a travel plaza!)

charlie recommended I read Cadillac Desert, a book on Western water issues, it's a great book.  

One of the many points is that the creation of dams in the 1930s in the Pacific Northwest, part for flooding, part of rural electrification, part a New Deal jobs program, ended up being an essential part of the WWII manufacturing effort, by producing gobs of cheap electricity, which helped to cheapen the cost of aluminum, among others.

Bonneville Dam is one of the federal installations considered public lands--National Park Service, US Forest Service (Department of Agriculture, US Fish and Wildlife Service (Department of the Interior), Bureau of Reclamation dam and recreation sites (Interior), and Army Corps of Engineers--navigable rivers, locks, dams, and related recreation areas, that will be honoring National Public Lands Day, held the fourth Saturday in September, with a volunteer activity.

Looking at the sluiceways, I was struck by how the FDR Administration and others built great things ("Let’s make every day National Public Lands Day," Environment America), while the Trump Administration is more focused on the destruction of government ("White House begins plan for mass firings if there’s a government shutdown," Washington Post).

Last year, volunteers on NPLD at NPS installations provided more than 41,000 hours of service, and they got a free entry pass to use later, for visiting an NPS site.  

Some states and local governments also hold events celebrating public lands ("EP Public Lands Day event is part of Minnesota Master Naturalist program," Eden Prairie Local News, "Fall River State Park celebrates National Public Lands Day with 23rd annual Rendezvous," Butler County [KS] Times-Gazette, "Celebrate Wyoming Public Lands Day by committing to protect them," Wyoming News-Tribune, "Chattanooga Parks And Outdoors Celebrates National Public Lands Day," Chattanooga Pulse).

Usually Public Lands Day is a free visitation day ("National Parks That Usually Charge Fees Are Free This Weekend," Outside Magazine).

This Daily Telegraph article is about lessons for British National Parks from other countries. But it's a really great scintillation of issues more generally. Good advice for all types of parks.

1. Reduce farmland and ban grouse shooting
2. Create leisure-friendly infrastructure 
3. Devise and enforce strict rules for all.
4. Invest in public transport 
5. Control the flow of visitors
6. Ban dogs 
7. Ditch the “National Landscapes” moniker
8. Think beyond the hills
9. Build in winter resilience 
10. Aim High

1.  Wildfires aren't limited to public lands, but are a big issue while the Trump Administration refuses to acknowledge climate change ("Next Thanksgiving, Smokey Bear should talk about climate change," Los Angeles Times, "Trump’s Attack on Government Capacity Will Fan the Flames of the Home Insurance Crisis," American Prospect).

Photo: Hank Van Denberg, Colorado Public Radio.

2.  NPS and Forest Service cutbacks and public billboard campaign ("Meet the Volunteers Who Help Keep U.S. National Parks and Public Lands Running," New York Times, "Overflowing toilets, trash heaps plague Washington hiking hot spots," San Francisco Chronicle, "US Forest Service and National Park Service to fire thousands of workers," Guardian, "National Park Service staff told to downplay record-breaking visitor stats," San Francisco Chronicle).

Although parks seemed to have weathered the cutbacks this past summer ("National parks appear to have weathered summer tourism storm despite cuts," USA Today).  From the article:

While there have been isolated reports of problems, visitors saw few systemic issues. Instead, they marveled at redwoods and giant sequoias, hiked through slot canyons and up Yosemite's Half Dome, snapped photos of elk and moose in Rocky Mountain National Park, and watched the stars swirl overhead at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska.

And there's also no evidence that routine maintenance has ground to a halt. Among other items, federal purchasing records show projects underway to buy 40 new picnic tables in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, paint a cedar shingle roof at James A. Garfield National Historic Site, and buy two new snowblowers for Crater Lake National Park.

A billboard in downtown Duluth criticizes cuts to national parks, including Voyageurs, paid for by new pro-labor news outlet More Perfect Union. Now, historians worry about the signs you won't see in national parks as the Trump administration urges visitors to report signs that cast American history in an unflattering light. (Jana Hollingsworth/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

However, as the value of previous investments in parks are consumed, this is not likely to continue ("More than 425 popular campsites across Pa. are closed indefinitely due to DOGE cuts," Philadelphia Inquirer, "Trump Is Setting the National Parks Up to Fail," Atlantic).  From the Atlantic:

But rangers say the real crisis is happening beyond the trails and campgrounds, where visitors can’t see it. Park employees’ experiences, which several people described to me and dozens more have shared publicly, suggest that the Department of the Interior sacrificed long-term stewardship of American lands to maintain a veneer of normalcy for this summer’s crowds. “We are really pulling out all the stops to make sure that the impacts are being hidden,” an emergency-services ranger in the western United States told me. (She and other park employees I spoke with for this story requested anonymity, out of fear of losing their job.)

The National Park Service lost about a quarter of its permanent staff to mass firings, buyouts, early retirements, and resignations this winter and spring. In April, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum made the department’s priorities for the remaining staff clear: In an order, he declared that parks had to stay “open and accessible” and “provide the best customer service experience for all visitors.” Any facility closures or reduced hours would need to be approved by NPS and Department of Interior leadership in Washington. The order alluded to the general importance of conservation but showed little interest in research, monitoring, or maintenance.

... All of that research required an army of employees, many of whom are now out of a job. Ryan Valdez, the senior director of conservation science at the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), told me that the Park Service’s science arm, which once employed hundreds of people in land, water, air, wildlife, and climate-change programs, is “pretty much dismantled.”

Through a public billboard campaign,, the progressive news outlet More Perfect Union called on citizens to contact Congress about these transgressions ("Duluth billboards blast DOGE cuts to Voyageurs National Park," MST, "These billboards celebrate America’s national parks to call out DOGE cuts," Yello).

Shot in 1863, "Scourged Back" was a key image in abolitionists' anti-slavery campaigns during the American Civil War. McPherson & Oliver/National Gallery of Art. From the CNN story, "‘Scourged Back’ exposed the horror of slavery. Now it’s embroiled in America’s censorship debate."

3. Battle over interpretation of "bad moments" in American history ("Park Service Is Ordered to Take Down Some Materials on Slavery and Tribes," New York Times). "National parks remove signs about climate, slavery and Japanese detention," Washington Post, "No matter how hard he tries, Trump’s effort to rewrite Black history can’t last," Philadelphia Inquirer, "National parks agency tight-lipped over changes to Charleston sites as Trump removal deadline passes," Charleston Post & Courier, "From slavery to pollution, National Park employees flagged material deemed ‘disparaging’ to US," AP).

The right calls the left 'woke,' crybabies about policies and practices.  The right is the woke side, afraid of the reality of history ("A walk through a Smithsonian museum reveals American genius and cruelty as Trump presses for change," AP, How park visitors responded when asked to report anti-American signs," Washington Post).

People walk past an informational panel at President's House Site Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Philadelphia.  (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Garbage spilling out of an outhouse near Beehive Reservoir in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. Photo: U.S. Forest Service.

4.  Various anti-public land measures by the Trump Administration aim to extract resources, not promote conservation ("After national parks hearing, MAGA forces continue public land assault, greens say," WyoFile).

As Congress conducted a high-profile hearing in Grand Teton National Park 10 days ago to support parks funding, President Donald Trump’s administration and supporters were busy elsewhere eliminating public land protections across the West.

Those attacks include Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ move to rescind the Forest Service roadless rule that protects 59 million roadless acres considered vital to wildlife. Also, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order restricting use of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was created in 1964 to buy and preserve recreation lands. ("Interior Department changing conservation funding rules, what it can go toward and who can participate," Colorado Public Radio)

Meantime, the U.S. House on Sept. 3 put on the chopping block a Bureau of Land Management plan in Montana that restricted coal leasing. If agreed to by the Senate, the bill would open the door to “legal and regulatory chaos” across the West, the Center for Western Priorities warned.

And on Thursday, the BLM opened comment on the plan to roll back its Public Lands Rule that gave conservation an equal footing with industrial uses of property owned by all Americans. ("Trump administration moves to kill Biden-era Public Lands Rule for Bureau of Land Management," Summit Daily, "Trump administration wants to cancel Biden-era rule that made conservation a 'use' of public land," AP).

The administration and its supporters characterized the changes as necessary to help reduce the federal deficit, rectify allegedly unlawful policies and increase energy production, among other things.

In 1982, conceptual artist Agnes Denes planted and harvested a two-acre field of wheat on a rubble-strewn landfill in Lower Manhattan, located just a few blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center, for her incredible project Wheatfield – A Confrontation. 

The work was commissioned by the Public Art Fund and took four months to complete. Denes and her team meticulously prepared the infertile landfill, bringing in soil, digging 285 furrows by hand, and planting the seeds. For months, they tended to the field, maintaining an irrigation system, weeding, and fertilizing. The effort culminated in a successful harvest, yielding over 1,000 pounds of golden wheat. 

Congressional Review Act "House Republicans’ Use of Little-Known Law to Strike Down Public Land Plans Could Be Pandora’s Box Moment,"

5.  Some states aim to monetize public lands too ("Michigan plans to clear 400+ acres of state forest near Gaylord for solar farm ," MLive).  From the article:

This comes as the DNR faces dwindling revenues from hunting and fishing licenses, and Michigan falls behind building enough renewable energy fast enough to risk not meeting a key state climate goal – 100% clean energy by 2040. Leasing 4,000 acres of public land statewide is part of the DNR’s plan to help remedy both problems in coming years. Officials said that state solar initiative may begin just west of Gaylord.

6.  Republican efforts to sell off public lands continue | Now the justification is for building housing ("Mike Lee says selling public lands will solve the West’s housing crisis. Past sales show otherwise," Utah News Dispatch, "Utah’s High-Stakes PR Campaign to Wrest Control of Public Lands," Mother Jones, "Utah is funding a media campaign to support its public lands lawsuit," Salt Lake Tribune, "Battles over public lands loom even after sell-off proposal fails," Stateline, "Across the West, a pitch to lower housing costs: Sell federal land," Washington Post, "How Seriously Should We Take the Sale of Federal Lands? Very Seriously, Experts Say," Outdoor Life).

In an essay for Bloomberg ("The US Government Is Sitting on a Possible Solution to the Housing Crisis") the author of Land Power ("Land, The First Frontier: An Interview with Michael Albertus about “Land Power”," Chicago Review of Books) makes the point that most public lands don't lend themselves to housing, despite the claims by people like Senator Mike Lee.  But he suggests some land does meet the criterion.

The trouble is that many federal lands are not attractive for development or have other important uses, including outdoor recreation, wilderness habitat preservation and forestry, as well as livestock grazing and mineral and energy extraction. Much of the terrain is too rugged for building or too far from the places where people want to live. That’s especially true of the vast expanses of arid land in the West, where most federal land is located. Many developers have made a similar point: The chief housing problem is that affordable homes are not available in the most attractive places to live, which are typically dynamic cities.

The idea of building whole cities from scratch in the middle of nowhere is unattractive to most homebuyers, who want to live where there are ample economic opportunities, services and cultural activities. Instead, the Trump administration should focus on identifying federal parcels of land within or adjacent to metropolitan areas that could be transformed into housing.

A considerable amount of property meets this criterion. One study found that in Utah alone, the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) own 217,000 acres within the boundaries of cities. Another 650,000 acres of federal land—excluding national parks, military bases and areas with other congressional protections—are located within a mile of Utah city boundaries. In a state where new homebuilding permits have hovered at 30,000 a year, that’s sufficient acreage to keep developers busy for decades.

7.  States with a true environmental ethic do not support rolling back public lands ("These Oregon natural areas could be logged, developed if Trump rescinds roadless rule," Portland Oregonian, "Why public lands should stay public and protected," Los Angeles Times, "WA forests are too complex for ‘cut or don’t cut’ thinking," Seattle Times) ("This Land Is My Land: Inside the Growing Movement to Fight Conservation," Mother Jones) while conservative states do.

From the LAT:

The federal government manages natural resources on the “public lands” across the nation as a kind of “commons” on behalf of all Americans. So regardless of where you live, you are part-owner of 640 million acres — roughly 28% of the country — protected as public lands. The vast majority of these holdings (about 95%) are managed by the “Big Four” agencies: the Bureau of Land Management (245 million acres), the U.S. Forest Service (193 million acres), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (95 million acres), and the National Park Service (85 million acres).

The evolution of this vast, shared domain commenced in the wake of the American Revolution, when the new nation’s territorial appetite proved insatiable. After just 70 years, the continental outline of the United States looked as it does today. For this ever-ambitious republic, the key to extending American sovereignty from sea to shining sea was control over the land itself.

To transfer public lands into private hands efficiently, Congress passed a series of laws: the Homestead Act, the General Mining Act, the Desert Land Act and the Timber and Stone Act, for example. While these efforts unleashed a white tide of settlement on federal and unprotected Native lands, privatization also wreaked ecological havoc.

Photo: Spencer Heaps, Utah News Dispatch.

Historian Vernon Parrington called this giveaway “the Great Barbecue.” “Congress had rich gifts to bestow,” he argued, “in lands, tariffs, subsidies, favors of all sorts; and when influential citizens made their wishes known to the reigning statesmen, the sympathetic politicians were quick to turn the government into the fairy godmother the voters wanted it to be.”

After the Civil War, the federal government continued to promote Western settlement and resource extraction with little oversight or regulation. But the commodification of the nation’s beavers, bison, whales, old-growth forests, salmon, elk, grizzlies, wolves and agricultural lands to supply an insatiable global market finally prompted a former Interior Department secretary to lament that Americans were “a spendthrift people recklessly wasting [their] heritage” and saddled with “a government careless of the future.”

 8.  Park transportation and access.  In many places, parks and public lands aren't necessarily accessible to people who don't have a car.  

I've written a proposal for a 'recreation transportation district' for Salt Lake County to provide access to public lands.  

With a couple exceptions, like a winter ski bus, public transit to public lands--mostly the Uinta-Wasatch- Cache National Forest--isn't available.  (USFS keeps merging forests because of lack of funds.)  

There are federal transportation programs for parks, but they could be adopted on a more widespread basis ("Ditch the car: how to visit America's national parks without the congestion," Guardian).

I've got a mostly written blog entry on this, from a long time ago, that I'll try to finish for publication tomorrow.

Western railroad passenger tourism was built on visitation to the national parks, before there was even a national park system.

While suggestions for Britain, these recommendations are worthy of all ("Tourism transport in the UK is a mess – here's how to fix it," Daily Telegraph).

1. Frequent hybrid and electric minibuses
2. Regular electric trains from rural areas
3. A national tram network
4. E-bike roads
5. One-way rural roads and coastal access lanes
6. Expand slow ways (support walking)
7. Canal services
8. River and bay crossings [I'd add bridge crossings too]
9. All-user access.  Cities, national parks, lakesides, canal paths, museums and high streets need to be fully accessible to all, whatever their mobility needs and abilities. We’re all getting older, and there will be many more older than younger people in years to come. Any path or porch or doorway that can’t be entered on wheels or with a stick should be yellow-taped and closed until it is.
10. Short-haul ships to the EU