U.S. Park Service says to leave your cash at home,

But some objecting to payless payments

At dozens of national parks and historical sites around the United States, getting away from it all to revel in the country’s wideopen 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 came to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana, then Death Valley National Park in California, and this month, Hovenweep National Monument in Colorado and Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah will go cashless. (At many sites, 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, and reactions on the park’s forum were so testy that moderators issued reminders to keep it familyfriendly.

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.

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, cards or cash.