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Anchorage – A
$1.5 million marketing partnership with the Alaska Travel Industry
Association
is one of 201 proposals National Park Service Director Mary Bomar
and Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced at a press
conference in Yosemite National Park today to celebrate the 91st
anniversary of the NPS.
“The National Park Service has, after a rigorous review,
certified these proposals as eligible for centennial challenge
matching funds,” Bomar said. “And they are ready to
go in Fiscal Year 2008 which begins October 1”
The marketing program and a separate project which would install
clean-burning battery/propane hybrid generators at Kennecott in
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park are two of the nearly $370 million
of proposals eligible for centennial challenge matching funds.
The marketing proposal would reach out to independent travelers
and Alaskans to inform them of opportunities to visit the 17 national
park areas in Alaska. It builds on a pilot program run in 2005-6
with a Congressionally funded grant which provided potential visitors
with park information, and familiarized travel journalists and
tour companies with national parks and their gateway communities.
The electric generation
project would replace diesel generators at Kennecott, a historic
mining area in the center of America’s
largest national park, with cleaner burning and quieter battery/propane
hybrid generators installed in the old mine power plant. The conversion
eliminates hauling and potentially spilling diesel fuel in the
remote location, and will cut generator running time by an estimated
50 percent.
Director Bomar said, “The
centennial challenge is a critical element in the National Park
Centennial Initiative put forward
by President Bush and unveiled by Secretary Kempthorne one year
ago. The full centennial initiative is a potential $3 billion investment
in our national parks, two-thirds of it a public-private partnership
of matching money.”
The
President’s fiscal year
2008 budget called for an additional $100 million a year for
10 years to be dedicated to bolster basic park operations, Bomar
said.
Congress has included the first $100 million for operations in
the fiscal year 2008 budget that awaits final passage.
“The second part of the initiative is the centennial challenge – a
funding mechanism to match up to $100 million a year over 10 years
of public money with $100 million a year for 10 years in private
donations,” Bomar said. “Congress has yet to finish
legislation necessary to create the public-private centennial challenge.”
Financial commitments
to the first round of proposals exceeded the President’s challenge. “We have about $370 million
in proposals with not $100 million in private commitments but $216
million committed from park visitors, friends groups and other
partners,” Bomar said.
“I’ve testified
before Senate and House subcommittees and judging by the warm
reception we received, I believe Congress
will include centennial challenge money in our next budget. We
look forward to working with members from both sides of the aisle
to provide the key to the centennial challenge. When that happens
we can make decisions on which of these wonderful proposals to
begin in the fall.”
Locally, Regional Director
Marcia Blaszak said the Alaska Travel Industry Association and
the Propane Education and Research Council
have committed matching money totaling $875,000. “The new
fiscal year begins Oct. 1 and we are excited to get this centennial
project underway,” Blaszak said.
To be certified, proposals had to be imaginative and innovative,
have a philanthropic partner, require little or no additional recurring
operating funds to be sustainable, improve the efficiency of park
management, operations and employees and produce measurable results.
Other proposals:
• Lewis and Clark National Historical Park adopting the Class of
2016 with the goal of turning students to stewards.
•
Strengthening efforts to save Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles – the
world’s most endangered sea turtle – with citizens
assisting park rangers to observe and relocate nests on Padre Island
National Seashore, the turtle’s most important U.S. nesting
habitat.
• Restoration of more than 50 miles of important foot trails in Yosemite
National Park.
• Using scientists and volunteers to study life along the Appalachian
Trail seeing national parks as an environmental barometer.
“
There is a huge wave of excitement among National Park Service
professionals and our partners,” Bomar said. “We will
create park-based centers for Junior Rangers, implement cutting-edge
energy projects like fuel cells and geothermal and build multimedia
wayside exhibits that “talk” to visitors. This is a
victory for national parks and over 270 million park visitors we
see each year.
“Last week, I sent an email to the men and women of the
National Park Service to inform them of our announcement. One of
the replies I received says it best: ‘This is thrilling!
A win/win opportunity like we've never seen before. Thanks for
the energy and vision for the NPS.’
“That thanks,” Bomar said, “is
for the many who worked to transform vision into action: Secretary
Kempthorne
and our friends in Congress, from both sides of the aisle who introduced
legislation to support the Centennial. But most of all, our thanks
go to park superintendents, friends groups, partners and an army
of supporters.”
Example Centennial Proposals
Certified Eligible for Funding Consideration in 2008
Privacy & Disclaimer
Author:John
Quinely
Last modified on: April 18, 2003
www.nps.gov/akso
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