National Park Research Paper

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National Parks have hazardous materials, even though they are thought to be clean and pure areas. An example is the Padre Island National Seashore on Texas’ Gulf Coast. They spend $325,000-$500,000 removing hazardous waste annually due to illegal dumping into the sea. There are many other national parks suffering from hazardous materials. The National Park Service (NPS) has insufficient resources to clean up existing environmental hazards. The problem is escalating. Many environmentalists suggest that the NPS should lead education efforts in waste reduction and conservation but is low on funds and resources to wage the campaign due to cost of cleaning up hazardous waste. Park Services must undergo change in attitude to become a leader in waste …show more content…

They range from critical issues of how to reduce trash--a problem with which every park manager contends--to the extremes of reclaiming dangerous abandoned mine lands and removing live grenades and torpedoes from beaches and hiking areas. The Park Service spends $7 million annually to replace or fix the 1,500 fuel storage tanks on or buried beneath its lands; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates as many as 30 percent of all underground storage tanks in the nation are leaking. Solutions to these problems are complex and require the Park Service to address issues that range from product procurement to educating visitors of these problems, to training of hazardous materials, to effects on gateway communities. Many decisions are up to the parks alone, not the agency, which creates directives on waste management. Andy Riggold, the superintendent of Cape Cod National Seashore states, “I can’t say that we have done a good job of sitting down and analyzing waste reduction and disposal”. He has been dealing with one of the most controversial waste problems in the park system in the national seashore’s Marconi Station offices near Wellfleet,

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