When Is Conservation of Park Lands Prudent, and When is the Spending Wasteful?

 Here is an excerpt of a recent conversation about the proposed National Park at Castle Nugent, St. Croix:

Republicans on the House Natural Resources parks subcommittee issued a statement Tuesday criticizing their Democratic House colleagues for supporting a proposal to create a Castle Nugent National Historic Site roughly three miles south of St. Croix’s principal town of Christianstedon in the Virgin Islands, saying now certainly is not the time to spend $50 million on that endeavor. The $50 million is tied to land acquisition for 2,900-above-water-acres for the proposed 11,500-acre site, and then the annual budget would be roughly $1 million, according to Congressional Budget Office calculations

“With ten percent unemployment, millions of Americans without jobs, record budget deficits and public debt skyrocketing, now is not the time to spend up to $50 million of the taxpayers’ money to buy nearly 3000 acres of beachfront property on a Caribbean island. And on top of that, it’ll cost nearly $1 million a year to maintain,” he said. “We can’t afford the price tag for a new park on St. Croix, just as many Americans will never be able to afford to visit there.

“I had my staff actually look up the cost of getting to St. Croix over the President’s Day weekend next month. From my hometown of Pasco, Washington, it would take two plane changes, over 12 hours and around $1000 to visit the island that will be home to this new park,” Rep. Hastings told the chamber. “For a resident of the wild and wonderful State of West Virginia flying out of the Charleston airport, the time to get there is a little less, but the price is still around a thousand dollars.

Isn’t it interesting that Rep. Hastings crunched numbers for AgFair weekend - the biggest travel weekend on St. Croix?  No doubt that it is not exactly cheap to fly to St. Croix, but that’s similar to trying to find reasonable flights to New Orleans during Mardi Gras. 

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