Interior Secretary Norton defends national parks spending [View All]

[Khephra]

Federal workers have undertaken 4,000 new projects to reinvigorate national parks and are fulfilling President Bush's pledge to spruce up America's natural treasures, the country's top public-lands official said yesterday .

Interior Secretary Gale Norton, responding to criticism from watchdog groups, told a national group of conservative state legislators in Seattle that workers are fixing crumbling buildings, removing dangerous non-native plants and repairing trail systems.

"Visitors are seeing improved trails, more accessible campgrounds, rehabilitated visitors centers, better roads, stabilized historical structures and reduced environmental threats as a result of better water and sewer systems," Norton told several hundred from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a free-market group.

Speaking at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, Norton said the administration has pumped "more funding per acre, per employee and per visitor than ever before into the National Park Service."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001992779_parks30m.html