YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK - Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke visited Yellowstone National Park on Monday and helped clean bathrooms.
Zinke (R-Montana) started the day with a chat about the state of the park with Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly. Shortly after that, the two men walked in the sunny but cool morning air in Mammoth to visit the public restrooms. As the men approached the bathrooms near the start of the Mammoth Hot Springs boardwalks, a busload of tourists pulled into the restroom parking lot.
With the crowd dividing up to go to women’s and men’s bathrooms on one side of the building, park workers blocked off the restrooms on the other side, and the two men went to work.
They pulled on blue plastic gloves and collected spray cleaners and rags from a service cart. As Zinke cleaned sinks and mirrors, Sholly moved toward the rest of the bathroom.
As he cleaned, Zinke explained that clean bathrooms were important to put people at ease about the park remaining open during a government shutdown.
Watch: Zinke, Yellowstone superintendent scrub bathrooms to keep park open
“The former Secretary and congressman and the superintendent are out there, I tell you the bathrooms were spotless,” said Zinke, the former Secretary of the Interior during the first Trump administration.
He added, “When I was secretary, I always said leadership starts at making sure the expectation and experience of a park is brilliant, it should be the best ever.”
Zinke said he felt it is important that people know most parks remain open.
“There's been other shutdowns where the parks have been closed, they've had put chain-link fence around monuments. In this case, the parks are staying open, which is an economic driver for those gateway communities.”
As Zinke moved to join Sholly cleaning toilets, he chatted with Park Service employees who remain on the job during the shutdown. Sholly explained that law enforcement, search and rescue, fire, and EMT personnel remain at work in the park. Other employees are also on the job, helping to staff entrance gates, keep toilets and other facilities clean, and look after the health and safety of visitors.
Sholly said they are being paid for with millions of dollars in park fees that were collected during the busy summer months. He said that in total, about half of the park staff remain at work. The rest are on furlough. But neither group will get a paycheck in as little as two weeks if the government closure is not resolved.
Now this is a slower time of year for the park. Only about six percent of total yearly visitors come during the month of October, but during the shutdown, businesses like the Mammoth Springs Hotel and some campgrounds run by the private concession company, Xanterra, remain open.
Businesspeople in West Yellowstone and Gardiner told me that this slower season is important because it provides an important bridge to the winter season. At the end of October, the park will close for six weeks to prepare for the winter season and to let snow accumulate on roads, which are used by slowcoaches and snowmobiles.
But not all people who make a living from the park are on board with the gates staying open.
“I do not represent the entire business community when I say that I I would advocate to shut the park down because right now we have understaffed resources that are here to protect the park and even my role of connecting people into the space depends on the federal employees who are here to be able to protect the resource to engage with the public,” said guide Rhiana Peck. She explained, “Right now, as someone who operates a private business, I'm allowed to come and make my livelihood within the park. Now, the people that I depend on, my federal employees, who are employees of the National Park Service, are coming to work, law enforcement is on the roads, and they might not be getting paid, right? So, people who are showing up with the most integrity and still not claiming their paycheck right now. So, what I feel is it's unfair for me to be able to access the front gate with my clients who are paying hundreds of dollars for a service that used to be a public service. And so, this is an inbuilt contradiction.”
Watch related coverage: Government shutdown impacts operations at Glacier National Park
Some retired National Park superintendents wrote the Interior Department and are also urging that parks be closed. They cite damage to parks when facilities remained open during a 35-day shutdown in 2018-2019. The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) is also urging closing the gates to parks. Local NPCA representative Michelle Uberuaga said, “Every single person in Yellowstone is critical to making sure the park is safe and accessible to visitors, so operating with a skeleton crew and a limited budget is not sustainable.” She said that resource protection is a big concern and added, “Our parks are for everyone and they're forever. And that means we need people, the park service employees who have dedicated their entire lives to protecting this place to be working, to have the funding they need, and to be collecting paychecks to take care of this place.”
Sholly said that visitor centers in Yellowstone are once again open, and staff are helping to offer advice and guidance to visitors. He said that the park fundraising and education group, Yellowstone Forever, is paying for that service.
