[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 149 (Thursday, November 10, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2323-E2324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL VOLCANIC MONUMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. MARK E. SOUDER

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 10, 2005

  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, on May 18, 1980, a catastrophic volcanic 
eruption forever changed the face of Mt. St. Helens in Washington. As a 
result of the eruption, fifty-seven people were killed, hundreds of 
square miles of forest were shattered, and the once graceful peak of 
the mountain was reduced to a smoldering crater.
  In 1982, President Ronald Reagan established the Mount St. Helens 
National Volcanic Monument within the U.S. Forest Service. The Monument 
is unique in that it is the only unit of its kind in the U.S. Forest 
Service. The Monument's mission to provide research, recreation, and 
education opportunities related to Mt. St. Helens and the 1980 eruption 
does not fit with that of the Forest Service, which is charged with 
management of our Nation's forests.
  The attached article, which appeared in The Columbian, a Vancouver, 
Washington-based newspaper, puts forth the idea that the Mount St. 
Helens National Volcanic Monument should be removed from the Forest 
Service, and made a unit of the National Park Service, whose primary 
mission is research, recreation, and education.
  When I visited the Monument earlier this year, the same idea occurred 
to me. Perhaps it is time we look into it.

                   [From the Columbian, Nov. 7, 2005]

                 Park Status May Ease St. Helens' Blues

                           (By Erik Robinson)

       Dave Uberuaga has been watching with interest as his 
     neighbor to the south struggles to pay the bills.
       Uberuaga, superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park, 
     has a built-in advantage over the Mount St. Helens National 
     Volcanic Monument: a steady and reliable source of funding.

[[Page E2324]]

       While the U.S. Forest Service looks for private enterprise 
     to help make ends meet at Mount St. Helens, Congress provides 
     80 percent of Mount Rainier's budgetary needs. Out of an 
     annual budget of just over $10 million, Uberuaga said 
     Congress provides all but about $1.9 million.
       In contrast, the $2.25 million recreation budget at Mount 
     St. Helens is supported roughly 50-50 by direct allocations 
     from the Federal government and fees generated by visitors. 
     Even with that, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest has had 
     to jockey with other forests for a $400,000 boost from the 
     Forest Service's regional office in Portland this year and 
     last.
       ``It makes it very difficult on Mount St. Helens to have a 
     viable operation,'' Uberuaga said.
       For some, the proximity of Mount Rainier offers one 
     tantalizing solution to the chronic funding woes at Mount St. 
     Helens.
       ``I think the possibility of it being folded into the Park 
     Service or redesignated as a national park has never been 
     greater,'' said Sean Smith, regional director of the National 
     Parks Conservation Association in Seattle.


                          A new national park?

       Mount Rainier and other national parks receive direct 
     appropriations from Congress.
       Mount St. Helens, on the other hand, receives its share of 
     recreation funding only after it filters through three 
     distinct layers of administrative overhead from national 
     headquarters, through the regional office in Portland, and, 
     finally, through the Gifford Pinchot forest headquarters in 
     Vancouver. At each level, the monument must compete with 
     other recreation programs operated by the Forest Service.
       ``That's what the park service doesn't have,'' said Cliff 
     Ligons, monument manager at Mount St. Helens for the past 5 
     years.
       Ligons added that the Forest Service had ample money and 
     resources to operate in the years after Congress established 
     the 110,000-acre monument in 1982.
       Times have changed since then, beginning with a precipitous 
     decline in timber revenue since the 1980s. Since the Forest 
     Service opened the last of three visitor centers at Mount St. 
     Helens in 1997, direct appropriations for recreation have 
     dwindled.
       ``The money to fight wars and to fight terrorism comes from 
     someplace, especially when you cut taxes,'' Ligons said. 
     ``Where do you think that's coming from? It comes from 
     government programs. Mount St. Helens is one of many areas in 
     the Forest Service that's currently struggling.''
       Ted Stubblefield, who retired as Gifford Pinchot forest 
     supervisor in 1999, said Congress ought to establish a budget 
     for national monuments such as Mount St. Helens as they do 
     for national parks. He said it made sense for the Forest 
     Service to hang onto Mount St. Helens once the monument was 
     established, partly because national parks tend to employ 
     more people with higher salaries.
       ``Our guess is it would have been somewhere between two to 
     four times as expensive to operate it,'' he said.
       Stubblefield and another former Gifford Pinchot forest 
     supervisor, Bob Tokarczyk, blasted members of Washington's 
     congressional delegation for failing to adequately fund the 
     monument in a guest opinion piece published by The Columbian 
     on Oct. 28. Although Stubblefield said the monument is 
     suffering from budgetary neglect, he doesn't believe the 
     solution is to simply fold it into the National Park Service.
       Instead, he said the volcano should be treated less like a 
     wayside and more like Mount Rainier, Liberty Island or Mount 
     Rushmore.
       ``Congress should do the same thing with monuments that the 
     Forest Service manages,'' he said. ``The monuments are really 
     owned by the public in a more deeply held manner, in my mind. 
     They're like our national treasures.''


                        Broadening opportunities

       Were it not for a new system of collecting fees on public 
     lands authorized by Congress in 1997, the Mount St. Helens 
     recreation program would have run out of money long ago.
       The Forest Service collected about $1.1 million in visitor 
     fees for the volcano last year. Now, the agency is looking 
     for more help from private enterprise.
       In a 150-page prospectus issued last month, the Forest 
     Service solicited proposals from private businesses willing 
     to pay the government to operate helicopter tours, mobile 
     food stands, RV sites, or other amenities around the erupting 
     volcano. Forest Service officials said the outreach may help 
     to improve the monument's bottom line, but it also would 
     ``broaden visitor opportunities'' around Mount St. Helens.
       ``The government doesn't run gift shops,'' said Steve 
     Nelson, recreation planner for the Gifford Pinchot.
       Uberuaga said Mount Rainier also has private concessions, 
     including two overnight lodges, gift shops, a store for 
     campers and three services providing guided climbs to the top 
     of the 14,410-foot peak. He acknowledged, however, that 
     people generally expect a national park to have a limited 
     range of commercial opportunities.
       ``So there are no off-road vehicles at Mount Rainier, and 
     yet on the forest there's appropriate places for that,'' he 
     said.
       Snowmobile tours are one of the potential opportunities 
     suggested in the prospectus offered by the Forest Service at 
     Mount St. Helens. Uberuaga said he will be interested to see 
     how the Forest Service strikes a balance between new 
     recreational opportunities while protecting the unique 
     environment surrounding the most active volcano in the 
     Cascade Range.
       ``I think the Forest Service has a great opportunity there 
     to demonstrate their recreation and visitor experience,'' he 
     said. ``They just need a little more funds to take some of 
     the pressure off.''

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