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National Wildlife Refuge System
Understaffed, Poorly Maintained Due to
Unsustainable Backlogs, Continual Federal
Land Acquisition
House of
Representatives Natural Resources Committee,
Chaiman Doc Hastings 5/26/11
WASHINGTON, D.C.
– Today, the House Subcommittee on
Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular
Affairs held a hearing titled “Buying
More Land When We Can’t Maintain What We
Already Own: The National Wildlife Refuge
System’s Operations and Maintenance Backlog
Story.” Members heard from the Obama
Administration and interested parties on the
current state of the System, the effects of
the maintenance and operations backlog and
the Obama Administration’s efforts to buy
more land even though the government can’t
maintain what it already owns.
“Today, the cumulative backlog of the
National Wildlife Refuge System is $3.3
billion which includes more than 1,200
invasive species projects; 1,400 national
fish hatchery projects; 3,342 ‘mission
critical’ projects; 5,994 refuge road
projects and more than 12,000 refuge
facilities that are in need of repair. As a
direct result of this backlog, there are
miles of impassable or unsafe roads,
millions of refuge acres infested with
invasive species, a severe shortage of law
enforcement personnel and 326 refuges that
are either unstaffed or closed to the public
… What we need is a new paradigm or vision
for addressing this problem,”
said Chairman Fleming (LA-04).
There are currently 12,234 backlog projects
at a cost of $3.38 billion, over 25 percent
of which are considered “mission critical.”
110 national wildlife refuges are closed to
the public, over 11,000 facilities are in
need of repair and 216 lack professional
staff.
Despite the maintenance and operations
backlog, the Obama Administration requested
$140 million for more refuge land
acquisition in the FY 2012 budget, $53.6
million above FY10 appropriated levels. Due
to continual federal land acquisition, the
agency is incapable of maintaining and
managing the land they already own.
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http://naturalresources.house.gov
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