Find, and then fund, your park

New attention is being focused on U.S. national parks heading into next year’s centennial of the National Park Service.

With the theme of “Find Your Park,” a new campaign kicked off last week that features noteworthy backers such as first lady Michelle Obama, former first lady Laura Bush and “Science Guy” Bill Nye.

The campaign is partly designed to educate people about national parks, including overlooked urban sites such as Independence Hall in Philadelphia and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The campaign also has the worthwhile goal of courting a younger, more diverse visitor base for national parks.

Although “Find Your Park” is a catchy slogan — and might be worthy to people elsewhere in the country — it’s a safe bet most people around here can find Glacier National Park. If they can’t, they should.

A more appropriate slogan might be “Fund Your Park” because that’s the biggest need.

Part of the new national campaign is to focus attention on the deteriorating conditions in many of our priceless national parks.

The park system suffers from an $11 billion backlog of unfunded maintenance, including a whopping $178 million in Glacier Park alone.

Glacier’s lengthy deferred maintenance list ranges from the many historic structures (the grand lodges as well as backcountry structures) to the 745-mile trail system to road upkeep.

Many of the buildings in Glacier date back a century or more, meaning preserving and maintaining them is a constant challenge.

That means the current campaign might have particular benefits for Glacier if efforts to expand fundraising through the National Park Foundation and encourage Congress to release the purse strings for more maintenance money pay off.

So be sure to find your park, but let’s also take steps to fund our parks.