A. WEST YELLOWSTONE GATEWAY AND RANGER STATION BUILT BY PARK RANGERS, MAY, 1924 B. THE NEW SYLVAN PASS LODGE ON THE CODY ROAD YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK A. PARTY OF STUDENTS FROM THE SUMMER SCHOOL OF UTAH AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AT THE FIRE LOOKOUT ON MOUNT WASHBURN B. DEER AT MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, WHERE A SMALL ZOO IS BEING STARTED FOR INSPECTION BY VISITORS WHO FAIL TO SEE THE WILD ANIMALS ALONG THE PARK ROADS YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK Photographs by W. J. Cribbs B. UPPER KINTLA LAKE AND MOUNT GARDNER, ACCESSIBLE BY THE NEW BROWNS PASS-KINTLA TRAIL GLACIER NATIONAL PARK FLOOD DAMAGE TO ROADS AND TRAILS Not infrequently the parks are visited by flood as well as fire, leaving a trail of destruction to roads and bridges and increasing our problems of administration, especially if during a period of heavy travel. Experience has shown that while devastating cloudbursts are not likely to occur in a season when forest fires are serious, there is the ever-constant danger from one or the other, depending on the vagaries of the elements. Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Mesa Verde were especially hard hit the past year, complicating their administration by temporary forced diversion of funds until Congress could, by deficiency, replenish the park appropriations. SANITATION IN THE PARKS The United States Public Health Service continued its cooperative work during the year in maintaining satisfactory sanitary conditions in the national parks. The work, under the general supervision of Sanitary Engineer H. B. Hommon, assisted by Associate Sanitary Engineer I. W. Mendelsohn and Assistant Sanitary Engineers L. D. Mars and Arthur P. Miller, covered problems of sanitation in Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Glacier, Sequoia, General Grant, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, and Zion National Parks and Bryce Canyon. I believe there is no better example of cooperation between Government bureaus and departments than this cooperation extended by the United States Public Health Service in order that the sanitation in the parks may be on as high a standard as can possibly be secured to protect the health of the visitors. Any visitor to a national park may be assured that the drinking water is as pure as can possibly be secured; that sewerage and other convenience installations are as sanitary as can be provided for the money available, and that safeguards are thrown around the handling of foods prepared for consumption. There are, of course, places where the incoming flow of visitors makes it important to extend sanitation systems, but this is done as speedily as investigation has disclosed the necessity therefor. The activities of the Public Health Service in the various parks are recorded in Engineer Hommon's report printed in Appendix C. APPROPRIATIONS AND REVENUES The appropriations for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1924, totaled $1,822,730 and, in addition, $29,400.96 was granted in the first deficiency act approved April 2, 1924. Of this amount $27,700 was for the repair of roads in Yellowstone National Park, caused by the floods and washouts resulting from cloudbursts during July last. The second deficiency act, which failed of passage in the closing hours of the first session of the Sixty-ninth Congress, carried $1,044,871 for the national parks. One million dollars of this was the first installment of our budget funds authorized to be appropriated by the act of April 9, 1924, approving a three-year road construction program for 14562-24- -3 the national parks. With the exception of $2,700 for personal services in the Washington office, the balance of this second deficiency was for repair of damage to roads in Rocky Mountain, Mesa Verde, and Mount Rainier National Parks, caused by storms occurring at about the same time as the Yellowstone storms. In July last year severe cloudbursts visited many sections of the West, causing great loss through damage to highways. In the appropriations for the current fiscal year, amounting in all to $1,877,835, the House Committee on Appropriations of its own volition inserted a provision appropriating $20,000 for "reconstruction, replacement, and repair of roads, trails, bridges, buildings, and other physical improvements in the national parks and national monuments that are damaged or destroyed by flood, fire, storm, or other unavoidable causes during the fiscal year 1925." This provision will be of great benefit in the administration of the national parks and monuments, as damage to physical improvements from unavoidable causes is apt to occur in these areas located for the most part in mountainous country which the elements are eternally striving to wear down. It is a form of insurance protecting the regular park appropriations which can not provide for unforseen contingencies, and except in unusually bad years should enable the service to replace or repair physical improvements damaged or destroyed without going to Ĉongress for deficiencies. A similar provision inserted several years ago and since annually carried into the Interior appropriation act providing insurance against forest fires has proved of inestimable value in placing $20,000 available for fighting forest fires. Since the big fires of 1921 this amount annually has been more than sufficient to replace funds expended in fighting fires. More alert fire patrol, education of park visitors to be careful with fire, and favorable natural conditions have been to a large degree responsible in keeping down the menace of forest fires. PARKS APPROACHING SELF-SUPPORTING BASIS In a review of appropriations it is interesting to observe that we have worked toward placing the national park system on a selfsupporting basis. In the face of considerable and, ofttimes perhaps, just criticism we have exacted a license fee to be paid by visiting motorists for the use of the park roads in those parks in which roads. have been constructed by the Federal Government. In return for the fee paid the motorists received more than just the use of the roads, as in most of the parks splendid camp grounds have been. developed in which adequate sanitary facilities have been placed and pure water and wood for camp fires made available. Park revenues which are mainly derived from the automobile license fee, although the public utilities in the various parks are required to pay to the Government taxes on their franchises in proportion to the volume of business transacted by these enterprises, have mounted steadily since the creation of the service in 1917. For the fiscal year 1924 the revenues totaled $663,886.32, an increase of 267 per cent over the revenues derived in 1917. The parks' need for good roads has elsewhere been commented on at some length, but it is pertinent to say here that the improve |