4 parks in Texas eligible for funding

By R.A. DYER - Star-Telegram Staff Writer - Oct. 16, 2007
AUSTIN -- Four Texas parks are eligible for special funding from the National Park Service, first lady Laura Bush told a group of parks supporters here Monday.

The funding would come from the U.S. Centennial Challenge, which mixes public and private funding for national parks. It marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016. Bush said the Centennial Challenge projects will help enhance large national parks, improve local wildlife habitats and improve the national environment for humans.

"Already, the park service has identified more than 200 projects that will be eligible for Centennial initiative funding next year," the first lady told a gathering of the National Park Foundation, the main charitable arm for the National Park Service. "Four of them are right here in Texas. These resources would add a multiuse hiking and biking trail to Big Bend National Park. San Antonio Missions National Historical Park would add a trail reconnecting Mission San Jose with the San Antonio River. Big Thicket National Preserve would be part of a huge nationwide biodiversity study. And Padre Island National Seashore ... would re-establish a nesting colony for the Kemp's ridley sea turtle -- the world's most endangered sea turtle species."

During a keynote address to a gathering of the organization, the first lady also called on Congress to support the fund.

"Giving citizens a sense of responsibility for our shared national treasures is central to the National Park Foundation's mission," she said. "It's vital to the health of our national parks, because even though all parks receive federal funding, they've always relied on the support of private citizens."

Speaking before the same group, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne also called upon Congress to support the Centennial Fund. He said that President Bush has proposed the largest operating budget and the largest one-year increase in that operating budget in the history of the park service.

"The budget will put 3,000 more seasonal rangers in our national parks," he said.

Kempthorne said that Bush had proposed spending $100 million on the park service for each of the next 10 years that would be mandatory if matched by equal amounts of philanthropic dollars.

The National Park Foundation was chartered by Congress in 1967.
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