Parks could be open but unstaffed in a shutdown
As the federal government prepared for a potential shutdown Friday, David Todd wondered what he would do on Saturday.
Todd, who lives in The Woodlands, is president of a coalition that’s working to repair flood-damaged trails at Sam Houston National Forest. He’d planned to spend part of the weekend in the Huntsville-area forest re-covering tree roots that were exposed when Hurricane Harvey’s floods washed away soil and sediment.
But if federal functions ground to a halt at midnight, he said, “I’m curious if we’re going to be allowed to do volunteer work” there.
He wasn’t the only person uncertain on Friday.
A shutdown loomed at midnight if the Senate failed to pass a bill to continue funding the federal government. And if every government-funded agency suspended operations, Todd’s plans might be canceled — along with the plans of anyone who wanted to visit national forests, parks, recreation areas or monuments. Or maybe not. Late this week, the Trump administration was looking for ways to keep national parks and monuments at least partially open to the public in the event of a shutdown.
In previous shutdowns, national parks have closed, barring visitors altogether. But this time, the U.S. Department of the Interior planned to give visitors access to the facilities that
don’t require government staffing. That means some parks, monuments, trails and historic sites could stay open, though without any staffing by federal employees.
Clinton-era shutdown
On Friday, what that might look like was unclear. Would the gates be open at national forests like Sam Houston? Could visitors hike, fish and camp even if rangers and other employees were absent?
Todd remembers the Bill Clinton-era government shutdown, which lasted nearly a month in 1995 and early 1996. He had plans then to hunt at the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. He’d heard about the shutdown, but Todd drove 150 miles from Shreveport, not expecting the refuge to really be closed.
“The thought of the government shutting down didn’t mean that much to me, so we went up there,” he said. “And sure enough, they had the gates closed and they had law enforcement and they were enforcing the closure. They wouldn’t allow us into the area.”
That might not happen Saturday, but he’s not sure what to expect.
Jacob Rutherford likes to hunt in Sam Houston National Forest. In fact, he helped start a Facebook group about three years ago for people who like to hunt the forest. The group is now more than 1,600 members strong.
In a government shutdown, Rutherford said, “I think the forest will be fine.”
There might not be rangers or anyone to collect trash, he said, but “I don’t think it would affect anybody going out to the forest to actually hunt or go fishing or things like that.”
Furthermore, he wonders, can you really close a national forest? Sam Houston has so many entry points, hikers might enter federal territory without even realizing it, Todd said.
“There are so many access points,” he said. “If they were to say, ‘OK, the trails are closed, we’re shutting down, we’re going to take the day off,’ they really can’t stop anybody from going on the hiking trails.”
Harvey damage
Besides, he pointed out, almost two-thirds of the trails at Sam Houston are still closed from Harvey’s damage. Those trails will have a gate in front of them anyway, whether the government shuts down or not.
Meanwhile, Texas state parks aren’t bracing for any big bump in visitors, said Kevin Good, special assistant to the director of state parks. The last time the government shut down in 2013, he said, “we had a very small bump in visitation but it wasn’t any large migration” from national to state parks.