State parks feel the pain as money dries up

Amicalola Falls State Park and Lodge in the North Georgia mountains is one of the state’s most popular parks. More than 600,000 people visit every year.

They can climb a 604-step staircase to the top of the tallest cascading waterfall east of the Mississippi River. They can hike to the start of the Appalachian Trail. They can picnic, camp and stay at a comfortable lodge with soaring views.

But they can’t use the toilets at the Visitors Center. Those have been closed since late spring.

Like other state agencies, Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites faces budget cuts of historic proportions. With revenues plummeting in the economic downturn, Gov. Sonny Perdue and legislative leaders want to cut at least $1.6 billion from the state’s $21-plus billion spending plan, approved in April.

Even state parks are on the line.

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The 18-member Georgia Board of Natural Resources, appointed by Perdue, approved a plan Aug. 27 to close or reduce hours at up to seven historic sites and six state parks. The exact locations have not been determined.

Last year, state parks cost taxpayers $8.9 million, the amount left after generating $31.8 million in revenues. Proposed cuts, including laying off dozens of park employees, would save $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

What many park lovers may not know is the state’s park system has been making do with less since 2002.

One of every eight jobs remains vacant. Old and broken-down equipment is not replaced. Bathrooms are cleaned less often. Law enforcement is spread thin.

At Amicalola Falls, six portable toilets are lined up not far from the source of the indoor plumbing problem: a saturated septic drainfield that needs to be replaced.

Bill Tanner, Amicalola’s park manager, doesn’t know when he’ll get the money to fix it, an amount he expects to be more than $100,000. Unless public health and safety are on the line, it probably won’t be any time soon.

Across the state, at various times, half a dozen parks and historic sites have closed for two to four days a week, as fewer staff cover more than one property.

Andy Fleming, executive director of Friends of Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites, a nonprofit group that supports the parks through volunteer hours, donations and advocacy, said the system has bent for too long. Eventually something will break.

“There are cracks that haven’t become visible,” Fleming said. “I fear that the cumulative effect will start to become very noticeable if the new round of cuts go through.”

Making do with less

At Fort Yargo State Park near Winder, park manager Eric Bentley and assistant manager Dan Schay are the only two “badges” on the 1,814-acre park. They’re the ones who carry guns, write traffic and other citations, and answer the 3 a.m. calls about unruly campers.

A third ranger job has been vacant since Dec. 15. That means more night and weekend work for Bentley and Schay. And fewer eyes and ears for one of the state’s most visited parks. Located just 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta, Fort Yargo gets more than half a million visitors every year.

Even if Bentley could fill the job, he’d have a hard time. Starting pay is $21,000, about $10,000 less than Winder’s willing to pay for rookie police officers.

One way Bentley controls costs is to reduce the number of times he and Schay patrol the campgrounds.

“It’s two miles down and two miles back,” he said. “It adds up.”

He’s found other ways, too. Schay drives a hand-me-down pickup truck from the state’s Wildlife Resources Division. It’s got 195,000 miles on it and probably will rack up a lot more. Instead of fixing the broken pilings under a pedestrian bridge spanning a lake, he’s closed it. For two months, campers have been cut off from the easiest access to the rest of the park.

Privatization an option

At Amicalola Falls last Wednesday, Tanner started his day with a staff meeting.

The report from the park’s chief engineer was full of caution, reminding other supervisors to get the word out: Be careful with their equipment, from pickup trucks to vacuum cleaners.

“We’ve got to take care of what we got,” Michael Middleton said. “If something breaks down…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

Some of the financial gaps are closed by the Friends volunteers. At Amicalola, they lead hikes, give classes on snakes and birds of prey to campers and schoolchildren, and plant new landscaping.

Last week, four of them replaced a gazebo roof, using about $600 from the Friends’ funds.

Volunteer Jim Burson, a retiree who lives in nearby Bent Tree, said, “If you curtail parks, it’s a ‘pay me now or pay me later’ problem. There’s a lot of infrastructure to maintain here.”

Of the 63 state parks and historic sites in Georgia, Amicalola costs state taxpayers the most money to operate. To make up the difference between expenses and the revenues from park passes, lodge rooms and concessions, taxpayers spent nearly $700,000 on the park.

In fact, six of the seven state-run park lodges are money losers.

The only one that made a profit last year was Unicoi State Park and Lodge near Helen in the northeast Georgia mountains. It cleared $7,026.

DNR board member Earl Barrs, a tree farmer and land dealer from Middle Georgia, and a self-described “fiscal conservative,” said he didn’t think the state should use the parks’ profits or losses as the sole criteria for deciding which to close or where to reduce hours.

“There are a lot of benefits that are derived that don’t show up on the balance sheet,” Barrs said.

In the 1990s, under Gov. Zell Miller, Amicalola was part of an experiment to privatize the three most popular state lodges. The trial fizzled by 2001 when the Colorado-based company could not figure out how to make money and the properties began to deteriorate.

With these latest budget cuts on the way, state officials may try it again. The proposal includes privatizing operations at two parks, including Georgia Veterans, the state’s most popular.

While the parks await new budget cuts, those from the past still reverberate.

In his brown and green ranger uniform, Tanner is a minor celebrity around Amicalola Park. Last Wednesday, a young couple visiting from Alabama asked him to explain what type of seed their daughter was holding.

“It’s either a mocker nut or a bitter nut,” Tanner said, referring to tree names. “And do you know what it will be one day? A tree.”

This is the part of his job Tanner loves most, the one he has the least time for.

“I may be busing tables instead of being out on the trail.”

THE LONE MONEY-MAKING PARKS
• Vogel State Park $441,376
• F.D. Roosevelt State Park $220,884
• Skidaway Island State Park $125,388
• Elijah Clark State Park $122,193
• Tugaloo State Park $76,561
• Cloudland Canyon State Park $64,820
• Hard Labor Creek State Park $59,485
• Seminole State Park $53,490
• Mistletoe State Park $45,696
• Moccasin Creek State Park $32,061
• Richard B. Russell State Park $27,736
• Unicoi State Park and Lodge $7,026

TOP 10 MONEY LOSERS
• Amicalola Falls State Park and Lodge -$697,705
• Tallulah Gorge State Park -$496,164
• Little Ocmulgee State Park and Lodge -$479,525
• Red Top Mountain State Park and Lodge -$437,774
• Smithgall Woods Conservation Area and Lodge -$425,582
• Sweetwater Creek State Park -$414,817
• George T. Bagby State Park and Lodge -$316,153
• A.H. Stephens Historic Park -$292,776
• Stephen C. Foster State Park -$279,595
• Panola Mountain State Park -$273,383
NOTES
• All figures from fiscal year 2007, July 2006 to June 2007.
• Golf courses were considered separate properties even if they were in a state park.

5 MOST VISITED PARKS
• Georgia Veterans State Park 912,801
• Red Top Mountain State Park and Lodge 881,847
• Richard B. Russell State Park 602,111
• Amicalola Falls State Park and Lodge 600,953
• Unicoi State Park and Lodge 592,584

5 LEAST VISITED PARKS
• Travelers Rest Historic Site 2,391
• Robert Toombs House Historic Site 2,756
• Lapham-Patterson House Historic Site 2,791
• Sapelo Island Reserve and Reynolds Mansion 8,957
• Hofwyl-Broadfield Plan-tation Historic Site 10,730
NOTES
• All figures from fiscal year 2007, July 2006 to June 2007. • Golf courses were considered separate properties even if they were in a state park.
Source: Georgia Department of Natural Resources