Yosemite scam.

• Author: Doyle, Michael
• Position: Concessionaires reap profits at national parks

The good news is that summer, and summer vacation, are just a few weeks away. The not-so-good news is that, if you're like most Americans, you're going to have to find something to do with that time off. At $1,000 a person just for the airfare, Europe's out. The local beach, you've been warned, has more sludge than Prince William Sound. Another vacation with Mickey and Minnie in Orlando and you may just strangle the both of them. So, you figure, for the same price as a handful of tickets to see the Yankees, you could pack the kids into the Volvo and head to one of our national parks. After all, aren't Uncle Sam's parks the ultimate in safe, all-American fun?

All-American, perhaps, but safe? The General Accounting Office has calculated that America's parks are in need of at least $2 billion worth of backlogged repairs on rutted roads, collapsing buildings, eroded trails, and other park maintenance. Yosemite, for instance, is dotted with deteriorating restrooms and dilapidated supply warehouses, and desperately lacks employee housing. (Some Yosemite employees have resorted to sleeping in their cars.) Buildings in the nearby Kings Canyon National Park date back to the thirties. At the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, cracked and buckling walkways contributed to 29 visitor injuries in a recent year. At the Grand Canyon National Park, only 38 of the park's 438 trails are maintained; and at Yellowstone, the condition of 90 percent of the park's trails is considered "unsatisfactory" by the park service.

The Clinton administration may have requested an increase in spending for America's playgrounds, but the need far exceeds the plan. As head ranger Bruce Babbitt learned in April, the money needed to repair the parks isn't likely to come, as he had once hoped, from raising fees for grazing livestock on public rangeland and charging royalties on gold, silver, and other metals mined from federal land by private corporations. (Clinton backed off the plan, at least temporarily, after a cadre of powerful Western senators who opposed it threatened to torpedo the president's economic package if Babbitt didn't cave.)

There is, however, one way to get a fair start on raising some of the funds without dipping into federal coffers or taxing the general public. Turn to the hundreds of vendors doing business in our national parks who have long been on the sweet end of a lopsided financial arrangement. The 600 or so park concessionaires who hold contracts...