In addition to honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and being designated as a National Day of Service, Monday will arrive with invitations to enjoy the outdoors.
National Park Service sites that typically charge an entrance fee will allow free admission, including Fort Vancouver. Most day-use sites at national forests in Washington and Oregon also will be free for the holiday.
Meanwhile, a Discover Pass will not be required for day-use parking at state parks in Washington, or at lands managed by the Department of Natural Resources and sites under the purview of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Of course, many Clark County residents do not require an invitation to enjoy our natural wonders. Such sites are an ingrained part of our culture and recreation habits.
But the occasion provides an opportunity to examine the condition of our national parks, national forests and state parks, along with the need for diligence in protecting them.
The most prominent of those are national parks, long ago called “the best idea we ever had.” For more than a century, national parks have drawn Americans to our nation’s most beautiful landscapes; the National Park Service counted more than 300 million visitors in 2022.
Washington is fortunate to have three national parks — Mount Rainier, North Cascades and Olympic. It also is fortunate to have leaders who recognize the value of these spaces.
In 2020, Sen. Maria Cantwell helped champion the Great American Outdoors Act, which established permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Money from the fund is designed, in part, to address long-standing maintenance issues at national parks.
“Public lands are a great driver of our economy and an essential aspect of American life, and this vote says we’re going to continue to invest in them,” Cantwell said at the time. “It couldn’t be a more important investment, and it couldn’t give America a bigger return. This is a huge day for public lands in the United States Senate.”
Over time, that will help reverse decades of deferred maintenance and repair at national parks. In Washington, the National Park Service reported in 2023 that Mount Rainier National Park is in need of $252 million worth of improvements, part of a $679 million backlog in the state; deferred maintenance at Fort Vancouver amounts to $55 million.
Congressional Republicans are questioning why the backlog has increased since the Great American Outdoors Act was passed. The inquiry is reasonable, but it should not be used as an excuse to cut funding for needed repairs.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund was established by Congress in 1965 and is funded by fees assessed to the oil and gas industry, not taxpayer dollars. For decades, Congress declined to fully fund the LWCF, turning the issue into a frequent fight between conservation interests and extraction industry interests while leaving public spaces underfunded. Maintaining roads, trails and waste water facilities that allow Americans to enjoy the lands they own are not an extravagance.
As Cantwell said upon passage of the Great American Outdoors Act: “Taking this revenue from oil and gas off-shoring and putting it into land conservation has been a big win for the American people.”
Indeed. And it is a win that will pay dividends for generations to come.
All of that comes to mind as many Clark County residents prepare to take advantage of free access to our public spaces on Monday — a truly American way to spend a holiday.
