Almost four million people visit Yosemite National Park every year. They want to see the tall waterfalls and steep granite mountains that are capped by large domes. These mountains are an amazing sight when viewed from the valley floor. Lots of stores, lodging, and food are needed to handle the crowds. Also, water, roads, and sewage systems are part of infrastructures that must be maintained.

Unfortunately, these systems are starting to break down. It’s not just in Yosemite but in national parks around the nation.

Yosemite is thirty years old according to Dennis Galvin, a National Park Service worker. The park is not only old but worn out. Two or three times as many visitors come every year. That is too many visitors for the park to handle.

Four years ago a storm washed out a water pipe line in the Grand Canyon. The National Park Service had to send water trucks to provide water for the visitors. Last month pipes almost broke again and trails had to be closed for awhile. Some of these water pipes are thirty years old.

Why hasn’t the National Park Service kept up the park repairs? There is a lack of money. The United States has 378 monuments, parks, and wilderness areas. Between three and four billion dollars are needed for repairs.

Yosemite is one national park that does have money for repairs. It has two hundred million dollars but cannot spend it any way it chooses. Congress gave the money after the 1997 Flood. When the park workers started widening the road, they were forced to stop by the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club claimed that the road work was damaging the Merced River that runs through the park.

A Sierra Club attorney, Julia Olson, feels that the infrastructure needs to be moved out of Yosemite. She wants to see new hotels, roads built, and businesses started outside of the park. That way less pressure will be put on the already crowded park.

Yellowstone National Park is suffering similar problems according to the New York Times. Leaky pipes resulted from spring thaws. Millions of gallons of treated sewage was dumped in park meadows.

Who suffers from the lack of park maintenance? Over three hundred million visitors are affected and our beautiful parks too.

For additional information, look at these Web sites:

• Rockslide at Yosemite kills 1, injures 4
• Rock falls from Glacier Point above Camp Curry, Yosemite National Park, California U.S. Geological Survey
• Light pollution threatens national parks
• Regional Haze in National Parks
• Yosemite closes after violent flooding
• Yosemite National Park ( National Park Service)
• Yellowstone ( National Park Service)

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