Less than an hour’s drive from Atlanta, a beautiful stretch of the Chattahoochee River runs south from Buford Dam, a place where canoers and kayakers can escape the city to glide through serene waters while anglers reel in record brown trout. It’s one of the first places I visited after President Barack Obama asked me to serve in this job, and it was a pleasure to be back at the river earlier this week, working alongside staff members and volunteers who care for it.
This natural haven was set aside as part of Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area with help from a landmark program established more than a half-century ago — the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF. The fund uses a small portion of the money collected from oil and gas development in federal waters offshore and invests it in conservation and recreation projects for the benefit of all Americans. It has worked brilliantly.
Unfortunately, the fund is due to expire this year unless it is reauthorized. The stakes are high for cities like Atlanta and other communities across the country that hunger for natural areas and parks to serve their growing populations.
Few would question LWCF has been an extraordinary success since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law in 1964. In partnership with communities across the country, more than 40,000 baseball fields, hiking and biking trails, marinas and boat ramps, city parks and other outdoor recreation facilities have been built, with many more waiting in the wings for funding.
For example, in Atlanta, the fund has contributed $3.8 million in grants to 20 projects since 1968. These include redevelopment of the lake and construction of playing fields at Piedmont Park, as well as acquisition of tracts for the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and an addition to the historic district in the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site.
We have also undertaken numerous conservation projects funded by LWCF, such as the proposal currently before Congress to acquire a buffer of 21 acres along the Chattahoochee to be managed by the National Park Service as part of the national recreation area, providing important river access and habitat for fish, wildlife and plants native to the region.
President Obama has asked this Congress not only to reauthorize the fund, but to permanently guarantee that the full $900 million in oil and gas revenue goes to support these projects, as intended by Congress 50 years ago.
Only once in the fund’s history has Congress provided full funding — the year the Chattahoochee River was protected. Each budget cycle, this $900 million has been put into play, with a predictable result: Over the years, $18 billion has been siphoned off for other purposes. In other words, the American public – anglers, hunters, ball players, outdoor enthusiasts and city dwellers – has been shorted.
The importance of this funding cannot be overstated. We live in an era people, especially young people, are increasingly disconnected from the great outdoors. If we are to raise a new generation with healthy lifestyles and a connection to nature, we must provide more opportunities for outdoor recreation and more green spaces, particularly in urban areas.
Some may argue that spending $900 million on recreation and conservation is a luxury we can’t afford. In reality, we can’t afford not to. Outdoor recreation is a huge economic engine that contributes an estimated $646 billion to the nation’s economy and supports 6.1 million jobs.
In metropolitan Atlanta, for example, visitors to the Chattahoochee recreation area last year spent more than $123 million and supported 1,723 jobs. Not only do people get to work, but everyone benefits from a more robust economy. Local, state and federal taxes generated from outdoor recreation provide a great return on the public’s investment, far exceeding the amount contributed by LWCF.
A half-century ago, Congress made a historic commitment to the American people. As a result, we have irreplaceable natural, historic and recreational outdoor places that otherwise might not exist or might have been lost.
It is time for today’s Congress to fulfill this commitment by reauthorizing and fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Sally Jewell is U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
