WASHINGTON — National parks will remain partially open during the government shutdown set to begin Wednesday, according to an Interior Department contingency plan posted Tuesday evening.
Open-air sites will remain open to the public, but buildings that require staffing, such as visitor centers or sites like the Washington Monument, will be closed. Health and safety will continue to be addressed for sites that remain operational, meaning restrooms will be open and trash will be collected, the Interior Department said.
The contingency plans specify that park roads, lookouts, trails and open-air memorials will stay open but emergency services will be limited. The department added that if public access begins to pose a safety, health or resource protection issue, an area must close.
The contingency plan says that about 64% of the National Park Service workforce is set to be furloughed and that those kept on would perform “excepted” activities, such as law enforcement or emergency response, border and coastal protection and surveillance, and fire suppression and monitoring.
The published plans come hours before a funding lapse across the federal government. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told agencies in a memo Tuesday night to begin implementing their shutdown plans.
Recent shutdowns led to confusion about the public’s access to national parks. During the last shutdown, in his first term, President Donald Trump ordered parks to remain open. Trails and outdoor sites stayed open ,and some staff members stayed on to clean restrooms and empty trash cans.
Still, many park employees were furloughed, resulting in trash piling up and restrooms filling up with human waste. Some parks, including California’s Joshua Tree, eventually had to close because of damage made by unsupervised visitors.
That shutdown was the longest in U.S. history, lasting 34 days.
During the 2013 shutdown, the park service took a different approach to park access. At the time, park gates were closed and bathrooms were locked. Trash went uncollected, and fencing went up around some sites, like the Lincoln Memorial.
In both shutdowns, there was more notice about the plan, whereas the contingency plans published Tuesday night came just hours before a shutdown.
The park service workforce, which could experience significant furloughs, is already more depleted than usual. The National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy organization, estimated in July that the park service lost 24% of its permanent staff as a consequence of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency.
The park service reinstated a number of purged employees, however, The Associated Press reported this month.
The park service did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night on the number of job cuts and how many people were rehired.
The National Parks Conservation Association said Monday that the impacts of keeping parks open last time were “disastrous” and that some parks suffered damage that took months or even years to recover from.
“A government shutdown would leave our parks understaffed and vulnerable, putting our most cherished places and millions of visitors at risk. If a national park has a gate or door, it must be locked until a funding deal is reached and our parks can be staffed and protected,” it said in a news release.
Meanwhile, a letter signed by more than 40 former park superintendents urged Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to close parks, too, arguing that keeping them open during past shutdowns caused harm to them and jeopardized visitor safety.
“If you don’t act now, history is not just doomed to repeat itself, the damage could in fact be much worse,” the letter said.
