Some object to cashless US Park Service

At dozens of national parks and historic sites around the United States, getting away from it all to revel in the country’s wide-open spaces has taken on a whole new meaning.

Leave your dollars and coins behind, too.

The National Park Service is continuing to convert dozens of its sites across the country to cashless payments only, drawing complaints that not everyone has credit or debit cards.

The park service has been rolling out the policy for several years. In 2019, the service announced that it would only accept credit cards, debit cards and special park passes at Pipe Spring National Monument in Arizona. Similar changes followed at other sites. (At many, annual passes can still be purchased with cash.)

In January, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Las Vegas also moved to a cashless system; reactions on the park’s forum were so testy that moderators issued reminders to keep it family-friendly.

The park service said it wanted to reduce risk and the time employees spend managing cash, as well as increase revenue and accountability. At the Death Valley and Nevada parks, for example, rangers collected $22,000 in cash, which ended up costing over $40,000 in handling costs when factoring in the use of an armored car and time spent counting money and processing paperwork.

Of the more than 400 national parks, 108 charge an entrance fee, and most that have converted to cashless collection have had an “overwhelmingly positive experience,” the park service says in a statement on its website.

But now the complaints are the subject of a lawsuit filed March 6 in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, asserting that the service’s policies violate federal law defining cash as “legal tender” and the visitors’ “lawful right to pay in cash” at national sites, including those without bank accounts or cards or those who simply prefer to pay cash.

In addition to the park service, its director, Charles Sams III, and the Department of the Interior were named as defendants. A spokesperson for the park service, Cynthia Hernandez, said Thursday that it does not comment on pending litigation.