08/31/07 Park Projects Unveiled

Park Projects Unveiled. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Building trails, saving sea turtles and becoming "greener". Those are examples of more than 200 centennial proposals Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne unveiled Thursday. The National Park Centennial Initiative, first announced last August, calls for $1 billion over 10 years to strengthen basic park operations and is part of President Bush's 2008 proposed budget, which included the largest budget ever proposed for park operations and programs benefiting parks. KEMPTHORNE: This operating budget will allow us for example to bring on 3,000 new seasonal park rangers, interpretive guides. That reverses what has been a ten year decline in the ranks. A key component of the initiative is the Centennial Challenge, a public-private funding vehicle of up to $2 billion for new projects and programs with the goal of a $100 million public-private match each year for 10 years. KEMPTHORNE: What we have lined out is a $100 million category of funds we're recommending to congress that this be mandatory funding, $100 million each year for ten years. To call upon Americans to continue their wonderful philanthropy among the friends of the parks, foundations, philanthropic groups, families, corporations, etcetera Congress is still at work on the legislation to authorize private-public funding for the centennial proposals but $301 million in pledges are already waiting in support of the legislation. KEMPTHORNE: They have said 'you will be lucky if you achieve $20 million.' I will tell you that in a three-ring binder that is three inches wide sitting in front of me is a book which contains 321 signed letters of commitment from the philanthropic community that equals $301 million that has now been pledged. Secretary Kempthorne said the proposals the National Park Service has certified as eligible for federal matching money under the National Park Centennial Initiative are ready to go in 2008. The list includes proposals at 116 parks in 40 states and the District of Columbia but touches parks nationwide because one of the proposals is an inventory of every living thing in the national park system. KEMPTHORNE: There was concern that only the icon parks may be the beneficiaries but the breakdown of this is that the distribution of this money will be to the icon parks approximately 19 percent, to large parks 35 percent, medium parks 28 percent and small parks 18 percent. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.