Preserving and Maintaining Our National Parks
- Milestone: 200 Days
- Milestone: 100 Days
In the Next 100 Days: Begin Work on Projects in 107 National Parks
Why? Recovery Act efforts will begin in parks across America, from Lake Mead and Yellowstone, to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. The National Park Service projects will preserve and protect national icons and historic landscapes, improve energy efficiency and renewable energy use, and remediate abandoned mines. These projects will fall under six basic types of activities: construction, deferred maintenance, energy efficient equipment replacement, trails, abandoned mines, and road maintenance. Examples of each are as follows:
Deferred Maintenance projects will repair, rehabilitate, or maintain critical facilities to extend their useful life. The NPS will undertake major repair and rehabilitation work and will complete maintenance to improve facility conditions.
Energy efficient equipment replacement efforts will replace aging vehicles, heavy equipment, and HVAC systems with next generation energy efficient equipment. By reducing its fossil fuel consumption, the NPS will reduce its carbon footprint and fuel costs.
Trails projects will complete work to restore trails for safer use and to extend the life of trails across the national park system.
The abandoned mine lands safety projects will remedy serious health and safety concerns at the sites. A consideration in choosing a particular remedy is the ability to provide continued use of the mine openings as wildlife habitat by maintaining access and airflow.
Road maintenance projects will preserve park roads and parkways and rehabilitate deteriorated road networks. The NPS is responsible for approximately 5,450 paved miles of public park roads, 6,544 miles of unpaved roads, the equivalent of 948 paved miles of parking areas, and 1,679 structures such as bridges, culverts, and tunnels.
THE RECOVERY BILL
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a strategic and significant investment in our country’s future. The Act will save and create jobs immediately while also laying the foundation for a robust and sustainable 21st century economy by modernizing our health care, improving our schools, modernizing our infrastructure, and investing in the clean energy technologies of the future.
RECOVERY STORIES
What does recovery look like in your community? Share your photos, videos or stories about recovery projects happening in your area and show us how the Recovery Act is impacting your community.
