National park group in N.C. gets $4.1M for projects

After years of subsistence budgets, the National Park Service Outer Banks Group now has $4.1 million to tend to long-neglected maintenance and kick-start stalled rehabilitation of historic structures, an official said.

Much of the money available for Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Wright Brothers National Memorial is for modest needs, such as replacing park signs, fixing picnic tables and doing electrical repairs.

But some of the money, a combination of federal stimulus, fee program revenue and agency appropriations, will be put into high-profile projects such as painting and repairing the 1823 Ocracoke Lighthouse and replacing the roof at the Bodie Island Light Station's Double Keeper's Quarters.

"Obviously, the stimulus was a good shot in the arm for us," said Darrell Echols, deputy superintendent of the National Park Service Outer Banks Group.

"But the Park Service has worked hard to get soft funding, and there's a philosophy change at the Outer Banks Group. We're trying to spend the money quickly and appropriately and not sit on it for a long time."

Soft funding is money that is short-term and project-specific, he said.

As recently as two years ago, the Outer Banks' parks were operating on bare-bones budgets and drastically reduced staff. Programs were cut, vehicles were turned in and maintenance came to a standstill, he said.

Phil Voorhees, senior fellow for the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit that advocates for the agency, said the Park Service has been operating at a deficit of $750 million, leaving the system with a $9 billion maintenance backlog.

"It's absolutely a breath of fresh air that the Obama administration has looked very closely at the National Park Service needs," he said.

Echols said there is now enough money to do so much, there is a concern that there will not be enough contracting officers.

Money from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act must be committed to a project by the end of September.

Projects approved with the $696,000 stimulus funds include: painting the five historic Civilian Conservation Corps cabins; repairing and rehabilitating the Hatteras Island fire cache facility; replacing deteriorating picnic tables and grills at four campgrounds and a day-use area; and replacing the roof of the Bodie Island keeper's quarters.

"We received a fair amount for the size park we are and compared to what other parks received," Echols said of the recovery funds.

Visitation at the lighthouse will not be affected by the work, which will start mid-July and be completed Aug. 22, Echols said.

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com