Displaying items by tag: national parks conservation association

Campers are seen enjoying a morning at Elkmont Campground in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Elkmont is one of the Smokies campgrounds still open. National Park Service

National parks advocate and former Smokies official warns of funding shortfalls as closures continue, concerns persist, and people resist

KNOXVILLE — Funding for national parks has never amounted to much, and the federal government will cut even more if people don’t speak out in defense of the country’s natural and ecological crown jewels.

That was the message from Phil Francis, chairman of the Coalition to Protect American National Parks and former acting superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He spoke to an audience at Knoxville’s Schulz Bräu Brewing Company hosted by Discover Life in America. Francis said that due to rising concerns his organization grew from 500 members to over 4,000 during the Trump administration. The coalition, he said, includes many people like himself who used to work for the park system, including the former superintendent of Acadia National Park.

Francis advocated that others should lobby government officials to continue to support the parks.

“If you don’t speak up, it makes it a lot more difficult,” he told the audience. 

Critics have called for full Environmental Impact Statement amid threat to Southern Appalachian habitats; previous draft EIS identifies many rare, notable species in project right of way

GATLINBURG — Proposed construction of an unfinished section of Foothills Parkway from Wears Valley to the Gatlinburg Spur would traverse 9.8 miles of natural beauty that is home to multiple rare species identified in a 1994 study.

The federal government last month opened the latest round of public comment on the project, which would traverse Buckeye Knob and Cove Mountain and multiple aquatic and karst environments. Concerns raised by the public over the decades range from impacts on domestic water supplies and endangered or threatened species to the fact the roadway might be a catalyst for excessive tourism infrastructure in Townsend and Wears Valley. 

The proposed route also extends through dense areas of pyrite, a highly acidic sulfate mineral (also known as fool’s gold) that can poison entire watersheds when exposed if proper erosion controls aren’t followed. Contamination of streams and creeks led to the decades-long delay in full construction of the existing parkway section (known as the missing link) that extends from Walland to Wears Valley.