
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 11, 1993                   TAG: 9307120239
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: D-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STOP THE ROBBERY OF NATIONAL PARKS

APPROXIMATELY 20 million people use the Blue Ridge Parkway annually. Many love this scenic ribbon winding through the Virginia and North Carolina mountains. The 520 miles of asphalt and hundreds of overlooks, displays, campgrounds, trails, bridges and tunnels, buildings, dams, rock walls, signs and picnic sites are well-maintained on a $4.6 million budget. The parkway, including the staff of 250 people, operates on $8.4 million, or about 30 cents per visitor. Funding continually shrinks (down 14 percent since 1976).

The parkway is a jewel, which is to be protected and nurtured by this generation for the benefit of our children and their children's children.

The national-park system is in trouble as funding cutbacks cut services and its use by hundreds of millions citizens and taxpayers. The 350 national parks operate on $1.5 billion. That seems like a large amount - except when compared to the $9 billion we send to Egypt and Israel each year to support their economies, and the many billions of dollars sent to every Third World country to line the pockets of politicians and support the military of these governments. We have supported countless dictators and scoundrels in the name of buying friends and allies via a State Department with pockets full of our dollars.

Now is the time to fight for full funding of the national-park system and the Blue Ridge Parkway. These belong to the 150 million-plus users who want our parks to receive proper priority at budget time. Every week, our government wastes the annual cost of operating the 350 parks - $1.5 billion. It is time to cut back other areas - waste and foreign aid - and fully fund the park system. ROY LOCHNER ROANOKE

by CNB