No National Park

The Delaware Water Gap Defense Fund is opposed to this proposal for the following reasons:

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• Details: There is no clear plan disclosed to the public. The proposal lacks any detail as to permitted uses, fees, and visitation, as well as impacts on local environment, economy, and infrastructure. No entities should be supporting any proposal without this detailed information.

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• DEIJ — Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice: Recreation Areas are among the most DEIJ positive units in the National Park Service (NPS) system. DEWA hosts an incredibly diverse array of visitors and recreation activities—most of which are entirely free of cost, making its activities extremely equitable—and includes as many recreational opportunities as possible. A change to a National Park can only REDUCE this diversity, equity, and inclusiveness, the most obvious being that a fee will be required for entry to a park that is currently free to visit. Parts of the park that are now free to access may become restricted or accessible only by permit. One use which has shown itself to be of great concern is the loss of hunting within the current DEWA boundaries.

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• Infrastructure: A stated goal of the change is to increase visitation to DEWA. Increased visitation means increased impacts on infrastructure inside the park and in surrounding local communities. The park already has a $160 MILLION deferred maintenance backlog. This means that in order to bring the park up to par to accommodate current visitation, it needs $160 million of maintenance and repairs. Increased visitation will result in more tourism and development in our communities and within the park will require building of a visitor center, more bathrooms, more parking, etc. Local communities will experience higher traffic burdens and may need to improve and expand highways leading into the Park, like route 206 in NJ and route 209 in PA, with the burden on the local taxpayers. Currently there are many access roads leading into the park which would possibly be closed to control fee-based access.

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• EMS Services: Currently, our local EMS responds to emergency calls from within DEWA. The National Park Service emergency response services are severely lacking, and the NPS depends on local EMS, who in turn receive no funding from the Park Service. More visitors to the park will lead to more emergency calls in the park, further straining the resources of these services and limiting their availability to our communities. See this article for an example on how this can impact a community.

• Funding:  The proponents of the designation change are saying that a change in designation will result in an increase in funding. It is true that DEWA is badly in need of better funding, but the designation change would not guarantee additional funding. Funding for NPS units is based on a complicated rubric involving the size of the unit, the infrastructure demands of the unit, the personnel necessary to manage the unit, visitation numbers, and more. Designation of a unit is irrelevant to this funding rubric. Of the 423 NPS units across the Nation, 2 of the top 5 funded units are National Recreation Areas, and DEWA itself ranks 27th in funding, ahead of 423 NPS units including 48 National Parks. Yes, of the 63 National Parks in the U.S., DEWA already has a larger budget than 48 of those National Parks. Still, DEWA needs better management and better funding, but this can be done WITHOUT changing the designation and bringing an estimated 600,000 to one million new visitors each year.

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• Change of land use: Currently, there are 2,000 acres along the Delaware river that are leased to farmers who produce crops such as corn and soy, which mainly go to feeding livestock. The loss of this farmland will disrupt the local economy and food chain. If eminent domain were used to acquire privately owned property, the loss of property tax revenue would directly impact the local school systems, whose Impact Aid (intended to offset this loss) must be re-applied for each year and has been significantly decreasing every year. Increased traffic and possible tolls on route 209 would significantly impact commuters. 

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There are many concerns within these main topic areas. Ultimately we ALL need more information and are SEEKING INFORMATION from elected leaders at all levels of local, state, and federal government, the NPS and Sierra Club, and the Delaware River National Park and Lenape Preserve Alliance.