Thread: Delta

I see that the Feds are considering making the Delta a national park. That's all we need to mess up a good thing.

Deja vu all over again!
Group Wants to Explore Making Mobile Tensaw River Delta National


Actually it's local 'do-gooders' who want to resurrect this bad idea...
Opposition to Delta Becoming National Park - WPMI LOCAL 15 News - Top Storiesal.com: Special Report

It was origionaly shot down years ago...

The park that might have been
By SAM HODGES
Register Staff Reporter
01/12/99
Not so many years ago, the federal government came calling with the idea of making a national park of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta.
The home folks said, with emphasis, no thanks.
Though it would have meant broad ecological protection, and though it would have distinguished Mobile as one of the few cities to have a national park literally in its back yard, local sportsmen didn't believe federal officials' promise that hunting and fishing rights would be preserved.
Many who helped beat back the national park proposal now favor greater protection of the Delta. But they still don't want the feds in charge.
"When somebody from the federal government says I'm going to come make it better for you, you don't have to look further than the Indians to realize that might not be the case," said Win Hallett, executive director of the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce and a board member of the Coastal Land Trust.
The idea for a Mobile-Tensaw Delta National Park surfaced in 1978. The Delta was then - and still is - a national landmark, a designation that carries no protection. But in a 1977 review of all national landmarks, the U.S. Department of the Interior found that the Delta was threatened by pollution and timber harvesting.
The National Park Service, which falls under Interior, followed up by sending an investigative team to the Delta. The 1960s and '70s were a time of expansion for the National Park Service, which had a strong and powerful advocate in U.S. Rep. Philip Burton, D-Calif. There was nothing in the park system quite like the Delta, with its combination of marsh, swamp, bottomland hardwoods and archaeological riches.
"We made several trips down there," recalled James Kretschmann, who is retired now but led the Park Service team in 1978. "We toured by boat. We flew over. It's one heck of an area."
The plan was to spend several months preparing a detailed report for Burton's committee. Kretschmann considered his work to be preliminary, investigatory. He wasn't supposed to be selling the idea locally.
But word got out about the committee, and it came to be seen as a federal stealth attack.
"He never went around talking to anybody," said Read Stowe, a professor of anthropology and archaeology at the University of South Alabama, and a park proponent. "He just started moving as if they could bulldoze it through. But you know what Alabama thinks of the federal government."
Fear of restrictions on hunting, fishing and timber harvesting resulted in fierce opposition. Opponents held meetings and printed up anti-park bumper stickers. The Mobile Register weighed in with an editorial headlined, "National park in delta not needed or wanted."
A key player was U.S. Rep. Jack Edwards, R-Mobile. The national park proposal didn't stand a chance without the local congressman being on board.
Edwards, who has helped with other coastal land protection efforts, recalled in an interview that he had no strong opinion one way or another about the park proposal. But Kretschmann, who said Edwards was quite kind to him, remembered things a little differently.
He said he went with Edwards to a public meeting dominated by opponents.
"Before the meeting, (Edwards) said he didn't know which way to go. After listening to these folks, he said, 'Now I know which way to go.'"
Despite the local opposition, Kretschmann's team carried on, eventually producing a 110-page document full of maps and text. The report actually laid out six proposals, from maintaining the status quo to buying up 190,000 acres for a national park. Other options included creating a National Wildlife Refuge, a state park or merely instituting stronger state regulations.
None of the options called for restricting hunting and fishing, although a national park would have meant an end to timber harvesting and the gradual purchase of long-held private fish camps throughout the Delta. A park also would have meant funds for maintenance and habitat restoration, a certain number of federal jobs, and the high profile that comes with membership in a system that includes Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Everglades.
The report issued a blunt warning:
"If the downward trend of environmental quality is to be halted and the long-term conservation of the complex resources of the Mobile-Tensaw River Bottomlands is to be assured, the remaining area must be conserved in some fashion."
But the lack of local support guaranteed that the report would do little more than collect dust. Kretschmann made a brief appearance before Burton's committee, which quickly turned to another item on the agenda. The Delta park idea never came up for discussion again.
"Judging from the tenor of the people at the time, our consensus was, 'Better leave it alone,'" Kretschmann said.
He emphasized that making the Delta a national park would have been hard even with local support. Congress would have had to agree to the designation and find money to buy the land.
Still, conditions were more favorable then than now.
"The Park Service did grow dramatically," Kretschmann said. "There was this thrust in the '60s and '70s to take in all of the national jewels."

#er has it right, Feds didn't start this, it was locals. Can't understand for the life of me what the hell they were thinking......