Dreams of a Mount St. Helens National Park may not be dead, despite a recommendation last week that the volcano remain managed by the U.S. Forest Service. A national parks advocate and a member of the Congressional Mount St. Helens Advisory Committee both said Thursday that they still hope to see the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument become a national park.

Both men added that they hope pro-park public comment about the draft plan can change the rest of the committee’s minds before the recommendations are forwarded to lawmakers.

“I don’t think it’s done by a long shot,” Committee member Mark Smith said of efforts to make volcano a national park. Smith owns the Eco Park Resort near the volcano and was one of 14 committee members who studied the issue for a year.

“The goals of the committee … are best served under the national park mode,” said Sean Smith (no relation), northwest regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “We’re going to try to expand the issue nationally and regionally and get people from Olympia and Seattle and Portland to weigh in.”

Despite his comments Thursday, Mark Smith didn’t argue for or even propose National Park Service management during the recent two-day conference. In fact, committee members commented about how surprised they were that their proposed recommendations were so similar. Of 10 committee member recommendations, one supported national park status and that included splitting the current forest land between the Forest Service and Parks Service.

Thursday, Mark Smith said he regretted not speaking out.

“I’m really ashamed of myself and I wish I would have been a little more boisterous, but I saw at the time there wasn’t much benefit in doing so,” he said. “I figured ‘Let’s throw it out to the public and see what they say.’ “

Mark Smith added that he felt like the “odd man out” on the committee and didn’t think the group was up for an all-out debate at the end of an eight-hour day.

The committee recommended keeping the monument within the Gifford Pinchot National Forest but making it its own administrative unit and designating line-item funding on the same level as a national park.

Mark Smith said he decided that if all the committee’s other recommendations about road expansion and overnight accommodations were accomplished it didn’t matter which entity ran the monument. But, he said he thinks the Park Service is more likely to accomplish those goals.

Sean Smith said the path to national park status often takes years and must overcome local concerns about loss of control. And local opposition to national parks often changes once residents see the benefits to their economy, he added.

Cowlitz County Commissioner Axel Swanson, one of three committee co-chairmen, said Thursday the committee always expected to revisit the recommendations after hearing public comment. That said, he also added he thought the committee’s recommendation accurately reflected the public comment supporting Forest Service management collected during a year’s worth of fact finding hearings about the volcano.

“My understanding was we needed to get a draft on paper for the public to analyze and the draft needed to be representative of the whole group and I think we accomplished that,” Swanson said. “If any member is now having second thoughts that’s OK and that will be welcome during the public process.”

The public meetings on the recommendations are March 30th at the Cowlitz County Administration Building, 207 4th Ave. North, Kelso, and April 13 at the Camas Police Department Community Room, 2100 NE Third Street. Both meetings are from 6 to 9 p.m. The committee meets on May 14 to finalize its recommendations.

The final recommendations will be sent to U.S. Reps. Brian Baird and Norm Dicks and U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.

Related articles:

The vision for Mount St. Helens  (March 2)

Mount St. Helens panel schedules final public hearings on recommendations  (March 1)

Volcano unlikely to become National Park  (Feb. 28)