Friends of Acadia help fill a $7.3 million annual need.
By Peter Mullen
Staff Writer

BAR HARBOR – When the Friends of Acadia teamed up with the National Parks Service in cooperation with the National Parks Conservation Association in 2001 to put together a comprehensive business plan of the park’s finances, the resulting numbers may have been staggering.

Sadly, those numbers were not surprising. Acadia, like virtually every other national park in the country, is severely underfunded.

The study showed that Acadia has a staffing and budget shortfall of 53 percent over what is determined to be its operational standards. That would mean a $7.3 million increase in spending and 109 additional full-time employees.

While it is a nationwide issue, locals wonder if this is any way to treat a jewel like Acadia.

“Without question, Acadia is one of the most important, and beautiful resources in the State of Maine,” said Congressman Mike Michaud. “I absolutely agree that Acadia, like many National Parks, is habitually underfunded.”

That is where groups such as Friends of Acadia do what they can to make up the difference. Partly through raising money and partly through advocating the park’s needs, Friends works diligently to close the gap.

“The carriage road renovations were set at $8 million,” said Acadia’s Deputy Superintendent Len Bobinchock. “Friends of Acadia raised $5 million of it. The Acadia Trails Forever program to restore and endow the hiking system benefitted with $9 million from Friends, when only $4 million came from the National Parks Service.”

Furthermore, Acadia possesses some unique challenges.

“There are 180 to 190 private parcels of land inside Acadia’s boundaries,” said Bobinchock. “At any time, someone can walk through the door and offer the land to us. They aren’t required to so we have to have money available to buy it.”

“Then there is the Navy Base at Schoodic. They turned it over to us last year, and we want to make it a research and education facility, but it will take a lot of money to do that. The Navy didn’t have to build or maintain those buildings the way we would have to if opened to the public. That all costs money, and there isn’t a lot of it. They even maintained a full-fledged fire department at the site. We can’t do that.”

Overall, Acadia isn’t in as bad a shape financially as some other parks are. Not that a 53 percent shortfall isn’t serious, but that is in operating expenses.

“The volunteers help close the gap in this area,” said Acadia National Park’s Volunteer Coordinator Johnathan Gormley. “Otherwise it would mean longer lines in the visitor center, rest rooms not as clean as they should be and other shortfalls.”

There isn’t much of a backlog of major construction projects.

“Seawall Campground will be renovated this year,” said Bobinchock. “And Blackwoods will be next year. We managed to secure the line-item construction funding to get these projects done.”

Friends of Acadia Conservation Director Stephanie Clement feels there are a couple of reasons Acadia has been successful in this area.

“The Park does an excellent job of prioritizing and then explaining their needs,” said Clement.

“In addition, we look closely at what doesn’t make the President’s budget and communicate regularly with the Maine Congressional delegation to let them know what the park needs. Our delegation has been pretty receptive to Acadia’s needs.”

“Despite the general underfunding of the bill,” said Michaud, “I am very pleased that I was able to secure over $7 million in this year’s Interior Appropriations bill for Acadia. This money will be used to rehabilitate Blackwoods and other upgrades in the park. The size of this earmark is greater than those for all but two other national parks.”

All this advocacy can be a double-edged sword, however.

“We have to be careful,” said Clement. “All that we invest in the park we don’t want Congress to take away.”

New to the advocacy fight is the group Americans for National Parks. According to Clement, their goal is to erase the gap in operating costs.

“Their basic philosophy is that if you change the oil every 3,000 miles, you won’t have to change the engine every 100,000,” Clement said.

“If the parks get the money they need to operate, then they won’t have the issue of backlogged problems.”

pmullen@sunjournal.com

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