Commissioners rethink national park proposal
Monday, October 29, 2007 7:11 AM PDT
By Barbara LaBoe
Printable version
E-mail this articleCowlitz County's commissioners, who first backed a plan to make Mount St. Helens a national park and then seemed to step back from that decision are now asking for the public's thoughts on the matter.
The commissioners will hold a public hearing Tuesday at 7 p.m. to gather opinions to re-evaluate making the volcano a national park verus leaving it under the control of the U.S. Forest Service. The meeting is in the commissioner's hearing room on the forth floor of the county's Administration Building, 207 Fourth Ave. North, in Kelso.
Currently, Mount St. Helens is part of a 110,000 national volcanic monument that is part of the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest. Budget cuts and the imminent closure of the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center, though, have led some to question if the volcano and its buildings and trails wouldn't be better off under the national park umbrella.
The change is championed by the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, which has collected support from several local leaders.
Sean Smith, of the national parks group, said the greater stature and recognition of national parks will help boost visitors to the volcano, something that has fallen far short of projections shortly after the 1980 eruption. He also said national parks are better funded and would be able to spend more money on facility maintenance and updates.
Those arguments convinced the commissioners to initially support the change. This summer they sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell backing the change. At an August Mount St. Helens forum, though, Commissioners George Raiter and Axel Swanson announced they were reconsidering their stance after learning more about the implications.
Raiter publically described the change as a "flip flop," saying concerns about what national park air quality standards might do to area mills hadn't been fully discussed when commissioners first decided on the matter
Others at the forum also argued that the monument's problems have to do with money, not management and said the real solution is to get special earmark funding for the volcano's facilities. Outdoors advocates also said the Forest Service will allow more access and hunting than in national parks
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, who hosted the forum, hasn't voiced an opinion one way or the other. Neither has U.S. Sen. Patty Murray. Cantwell's office, in a letter read during the August forum, suggested she was leaning toward the national park status but stopped short of formally endorsing the change
An act of Congress is necessary to transfer the monument from the Forest Service to the National Park Service.
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