Mr. HARTZOG. Absolutely. Let me tell you also that the amendment to the Administrative Expenses Act of 1946 added $384,000 to our › employee transfer costs over and above what they otherwise would I have been in fiscal 1968.

Mr. McDADE. Could I ask a question here?

Mrs. HANSEN. Surely.

Mr. McDADE. In connection with that return of roughly 8 to 1, if you had been given the resources to protect this asset fully, what would be the upper limit of that ratio? It wouldn't have gone to 8 to =2, for example, would it?

Mr. HARTZOG. No sir, it would not. It would have still been almost 1 to 7. In other words, what we are talking about is roughly $6 million additional in management and protection to manage these resources at standard, and roughly $14 million more to maintain the natural and cultural resources and the physical properties in the national park system at standard. So you see if you add them both together, you are only talking about $20 million, and $20 million in relation to $960 million won't change the ratio much. But it would permit us, Congressman McDade, to eliminate some of these very serious problems that we are having in terms of trying to manage the parks. With yours and the chairman's permission, I would like to introduce into the record a statement on what are some of the consequences of operating these areas below standard.

Mr. McDADE. That was my next question, so I would like to see you put it in.

Mr. HARTZOG. Thank you very much.

(The information follows:)

STATEMENT FOR BUREAU OF THE BUDGET IN SUPPORT OF 1969 SUPPLEMENTAL

ESTIMATES

At the hearings on the 1969 supplemental estimates, replies were requested to two questions: What are the consequences of opening parks 7 days per week within existing personnel constraints and presently available funds; and, what are the consequences of opening parks 7 days per week utilizing "savings" which have accrued from reduced park operations and without constraints on personnel?

Practically all park operations require personal services-in contrast to contracting for construction. Thus, adequate funds and employees are required for park operations at acceptable standards.

With respect to the first question, existing personnel constraints have reduced employment levels below those which obtained when the program of reduced park operations was initiated. This situation under personnel constraints will continue to worsen. Since park operations were not at acceptable standards at the time the program was initiated they would, on a 7-days-per-week schedule, deteriorate further with constantly reducing employment levels, as required under existing constraints.

With respect to the second question, the "savings" to date are relatively insignificant inasmuch as the program of reduced park operations was initiated after the intensive visitor use season. Thus, relief from personnel constraints without adequate supplemental funding will not provide for park operations at acceptable standards during 7-days per week.

The congressional mandate is to manage the parks for public use and benefit in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for future generations.

Management of a national park, such as Grand Canyon, Yosemite, or Yellowstone, resembles in significant respects the operation of a small city, with resident populations (Government and concessioner employees) hosting, annually, thousands of visitors requiring parking areas, roads and trails; all types of utility systems, campgrounds, hotels and restaurants; museums, information stations, and interpretive programs; police and fire protection in widely scattered develop

ment and use sites; schools for permanent residents; religious and medical facilities for residents and visitors.

Just as cities have prescribed standards for acceptable operation of sanitation, police, fire, traffic, zoning, etc., the National Park Service has prescribed standards for acceptable operation of its principal park functions; that is, maintenance, resources management, visitor protection, visitor services, and interpretation of the parks' natural and cultural values for visitors.

When staffing and funding are inadequate for park operations at acceptable standards, the consequences are increased depredations against people and property, deprivation of services, and impairment of natural resources and capital investment.

DEPREDATIONS AGAINST PERSONS

When law and order are not maintained in a city-or in a park-crime increases and offenders go unpunished. Law enforcement is now deficient in many parks, crimes against property were up 18 percent in 1967 over 1966; major offenses against persons (rape, robbery, etc.) increased from 15 to 95 in 1967 over 1966: the crime solution rate fell to 11 percent in 1967, as compared with the national average of 22 percent.

Law enforcement is complicated in parks, moreover, because of the high mobility and diversity of visitors and their enormous numbers in relationship to permanent population-as contrasted with most small cities.

DEPREDATIONS AGAINST PROPERTY

The national parks possess the outstanding examples of our Nation's natural and cultural heritage. Thus, without adequate protection, unique and irreplace able resources are vandalized as souvenirs, such as the digging of small saguaro plants, cutting candelilla wax, breaking pieces from fragile formations at caves and hot spring terraces, etc.

Resources are plundered by poaching, as in the case of the alligators in the Everglades, and cultural properties are defaced-occasionally obscenely.

Such depredations of resources when they jeopardize the survival of a species, such as the alligator or the saguaro, are of far more serious import than vandalizing physical facilities, as for example, a restroom, since any species once destroyed can never be replaced. Similarly, cultural properties-archeological ruins and historic monuments-once destroyed break forever the links that bind the generations of man.

IMPAIRMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES

When funds and staffing are inadequate to manage crowds of visitors, resources are trampled and destroyed, as in the case of the banks of the Merced River in Yosemite Valley; the fragile thermal formations at Yellowstone; high mountain meadows and lakes in many parks.

Inadequate funding and staffing to study and manage ecological systems have placed in jeopardy irreplaceable resources, as in the case of the Giant Sequoias where the understory has accumulated to such an extent that wildfire could destroy these irreplaceable trees; wildlife habitat has been overbrowsed to the point of jeopardizing species and impairing the natural balance of ecosystems (see 1963 Report of National Academy of Sciences).

IMPAIRMENT OF CAPITAL INVESTMENT

Capital investment in physical plant is sacrificed by excessive and uncontrolled use of campgrounds and inadequate maintenance, as, for instance, in the case of park roads now resealed on a cycle of 18 years as compared to a cycle of 6 to 10 years suggested by the Bureau of Public Roads and most State road commissions for comparable roads.

DEPRIVATION OF SERVICES

Parks are usually extensive land and water areas traversed with many miles of roads and trails, luring visitors to remote and superlative sights and experiences. Park visitors today are increasingly from an urban environment, unequipped with knowledge or experience to cope with the wilds. They frequently get in trouble, necessitating emergency and rescue operations to save human life and minimize human suffering.

Sight without understanding is meaningless. The role of park interpretation is to supply through the operation of visitor centers, information stations, conducted interpretive walks, campfire programs, motion pictures, and similar visitor service programs the "understanding" that transforms a "park visit" into a "park experience."

Lacking quality-in resources or service parks inevitably lose their beauty and inspiration. The noted interpreter, Freeman Tilden, said it this way when he challenged Americans to make the parks a part of their life and thought. From them, he said, "will come mental health for the millions." Tilden spoke not merely of the surface, scenic beauty of the parks, or even of the serenity of our proud historic and cultural properties. "I am convinced," he said, "that there is an Abstract Beauty in the Universe—the Cosmos-that we attempt to describe by our verbal abstractions like Order, Harmony, Justice, Truth, Love ***"

"If there can be merit in the concept, the implication is that behind the beauty that we sense, there is also the beauty of Nature's order, of the adventure of the human mind; the beauty of the artifact-man's attempt to create beautiful things; and the beauty of human conduct-of behavior of which man in his best moments has shown himself capable."

Mr. MARSH. Mr. Director, the Secretary, in his presentation to the committee, indicated his concern about renewable resources and generation of income from the Department of the Interior. And I think you have here a very graphic example of what the Secretary was talking about. Have you discussed this portion of your presentation with the Secretary and brought this to his attention?

Mr. HARTZOG. Not with the Secretary personally, but with Under Secretary Train, who has been doing the budget reviewing for the Secretary, yes. It has been brought to his attention, and as the Secretary indicated in his press conference, and I want to share this with the committee, he has responded generously and creatively in trying to meet the need that we face in his recommendations to the Bureau of the Budget.

DETERIORATION OF PARKS

Mr. REIFEL. Madam Chairman, may I make an observation here? Mrs. HANSEN. Yes.

Mr. REIFEL. Mr. Director, you indicate a $960 million in Federal taxes which would be the income from the visitations to the parks. Now what you are saying in effect is that unless the Park Service can get enough money to adequately maintain this property, that we will be wearing it down to the point where we won't get this number of visitors; we can't allow them to come in to continue to destroy things, so we will eventually get to the point conceivably-it will be a long time down the road, but conceivably-we will have some public property so deteriorated that it won't bring in any more than what we are putting out, whereas now we are getting a return of about 11 to 12 for each unit of input.

Mr. HARTZOG. That is a tremendous summary of the situation, Mr. Reifel. And this is really what I am faced with as a manager, because on the one hand the Congress has charged me with the responsibility and the trust of managing these properties, and making them available for public use in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for future generations. I cannot say to you today that that is what is happening, when the visitors have worn over the shores of the Merced River in the Yosemite Valley to the point where it is as barren as the top of this table in place after place, where they write across the historic monuments, vandalize the

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historic ruins, and vandalize the natural hot water formations in places like Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave and other places. We are just not doing a management job.

Mr. REIFEL. The American people are very vocal and effective and necessarily need to be informed about conservation of our farmlands as well as our forest lands and other properties that are not only public but private. And here we have one of the most precious of our resources, and somehow or another, we can't generate the necessary concern so that we can get the help to the Park Service to provide for just barely keeping them up to standard, to say nothing about improving them.

Mr. HARTZOG. I would very much like you to read especially the last page of this statement I put in the record. We are really faced with the choice of managing these resources in the national parks. national monuments, and so forth, to fulfill the congressional mandate of passing them on unimpaired, and making them available for public use during such periods as we can afford it, or just simply opening the gates and letting people in to do as they please.

Mr. REIFEL. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Mrs. HANSEN. Mr. Wyatt.

REVIEW OF BUDGET

Mr. WYATT. I have just one question. Perhaps you can answer this and perhaps you can't, but I would be interested to know if your budget requirements have now been reviewed by the incoming administration?

Mr. HARTZOG. Yes, sir, they have. And that is the basis on which the Secretary has made his recommendations to the Bureau of the Budget. But his recommendations have not been acted on and sent to the Congress yet.

Mr. WYATT. Yes, I understand.

REPORT ON IMPACT OF PARK SYSTEM ON NATIONAL ECONOMY

Mrs. HANSEN. We will place in the record the summary of Dr. Ernst Swanson's report.

(The information follows:)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.

SUMMARY OF A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM TRAVEL

ON THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

(By Dr. Ernst W. Swanson, Professor Emeritus of Economics, North Carolins State University at Raleigh)

The value of the national park system to Americans is not measurable in strictly monetary terms. But it can be shown that travel to the national parks, monuments, and other areas of the system contributes far more to the economy dollarwise than generally has been supposed.

The park system is of such significance both qualitatively and quantitatively as to occupy a major role in the daily life of a nation undergoing marked social and economic changes. Trips to the national park system in 1967 benefited the national economy to the following extent: $6.35 billion in travel expenditures which resulted in $4.76 billion in personal income; $5.71 billion added to the gross national product; and $952 million in Federal taxes.

The $4.76 billion in personal income represents more than $23 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. This figure is quite sizable as a matter of gain to the Nation from assets being preserved for posterity. Unlike the mining and the oil industries, for example, which give up nonrenewable resources, the uational park system yields its contribution with little or no diminution of its

resource values. Wilderness resources are even increasing in value, materially as well as in less tangible ways.

To calculate the economic impact of park system visitors, we take these steps: 1. Determine the number of visitors who make major expenditures by staying overnight at or near a park system area. One-day visitors are omitted because we can't make any valid assumption as to their spending behavior. Under preIsumptions based on studies at major national parks, and a review this past summer by this writer of dozens of park and regional spending patterns, a reasonable "average" figure can be derived. To adjust for day visitors we reduce the total visitations by 25 percent. Thus, transients and double counting may be largely omitted. The truly income-generating park visitors are those who stay overnight tand who travel a substantial distance to reach the park. At Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, the income-generating visitors may be no more than 55 percent of the total. At Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, Zion, Glacier, and other parks, 95 percent may be income generating, based on park studies, park statistics, and my review in the summer of 1968.

2. Establish expenditures per person for visitors staying more than a day in the State in which the park is located. From visitor expenditure figures taken in varying years in two States, five national parks and one national seashore, and adjusting them for differences in price levels, we found this average visitor spent. about $15.12 per day. From several recent studies, data from the Fred Harvey Co. and my own interviews with travel group members, we concluded that 4 days is the average length of stay.

3. Thus, 75 percent of the total 1967 park system visitation of 140 million gives us 105 million income-generating visitors who spent $15.12 each per day for 4 days, or a total of $6.35 billion.

4. This figure, however, is total outlay, whereas the best measure of the economic impact of visitations is personal income. The $6.35 billion includes most excise and sales taxes, business savings, undistributed profits, and expenditures for goods brought into the area. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, direct personal income runs about 30 percent of gross outlay. Thus, we find $1.905 billion in direct personal income resulting from park travel. This is the income of merchants, retailers, service station operators, restaurant owners, and the employees of all the travel-related businesses.

5. There is indirect personal income as well, however, resulting from the park travelers outlay. Indirect income is that income resulting from the effects of the spending of the direct income receivers. The service station owner's wife buys an overcoat, for example. The clothier pays his clerks who, in turn, buy groceries. The chain reaction of spending naturally will be greater in a diversified economy such as the Northeast than in a highly specialized area as, say, around Glacier National Park. Economists measure this effect by tracing the use of a dollar over and over. The first spending contributes $1 to the money flow but if a family is saving 30 percent, then the amount returned to the flow is $0.70. The next time around, assuming the same withholding of 30 percent, 70 percent of the $0.70 is returned, or $0.49. Next time it's 70 percent of 49 cents or 34.3 cents and so on until nothing is returned to the money flow.

Now, to get some measure of this indirect income, we resort to a variation of the investment multiplier technique used to measure the probable effects of investsment. If there is a withholding of 30 percent from the initial dollar spent, we compute a multiplier effect of 3.333 (.30 into 1.0). But evidence from a variety of research studies shows this figure much too high and the rate of withholding as applied to travel-derived income is really about 40 cents on the dollar which produces a multiplier of 2.5.

Studies show that the multiplier varies from as low as 1.12 to 3 or more, depending on the economic complexity and size of the region being studied. The 2.5 figure also is an "in-between" value, based on the findings of the Robert R. Nathan Associates, research groups of the universities of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming and of Memphis State and Colorado State universities. This figure is an approximation which reflects a balancing out of the highly developed, populous areas with the poorly developed and sparsely populated areas.

In a strict sense, 2.5 is not an average but a judgment based on knowledge of the economic conditions of the national park system locales. Had we selected a multiplier of 3.0, a figure supported by some writers, we would have obtained a figure of $5.7 billion as the total contribution to direct and indirect personal income of national park system travelers. Our most realistic multiplier of 2.5, deemed more representative of the Nation as a whole, gives us a personal income figure of $4.76 billion contributed by national park system travel.