A couple of updates to pass along.
First, the list of recommendations from the Mt. St. Helens Advisory Committee may not be released today due to staff illness. As more information comes in, we’ll pass it along to you.
More importantly, we’ve had some time to get additional comments on the big decision, that the volcano should not become a national park but remain with the U.S. Forest Service.
Mark Smith is one of the members of the committee who initially started out as a skeptic of the “National Park” concept, but eventually came around to supporting it.
He thinks the committee, and the “whole country” for that matter, is missing an opportunity. “It’s a different mountain now,” says Smith, talking about the changes that have taken place since the 1980 eruption. “If it was still just the campground at Spirit Lake, the Forest Service would have no problem managing it.”
A View From Johnston Ridge. Courtesy: USDA Forest Service, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
Over the years, five new visitor facilities have popped up between I-5 and the crater. Three of them were originally controlled by the Forest Service. But one of them was turned over to Washington State Parks, and the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center has been closed.
Smith thinks the National Park Service would do a better job of managing Mt. St. Helens as tourist destination. He says NPS has more experience with the marketing and advertising needed to draw visitors. The Forest Service, he says, isn’t geared up for operating tourism sites. Smith has some experience in this area, he owns the Eco Park Resort located just outside the Monument. He also thinks that concerns over access to hunting, fishing and other recreational activities could have been protected under the National Park concept.
Smith says he eventually went along with the Committee recommendations, but doubts conditions at Mt. St. Helens will improve. “They’ve had 29 years,” he says of the Forest Service, “I don’t have a real good felling we’ll see a lot of difference.”
Smith also appears frustrated by what he sees as public apathy over the future of this Northwest icon. No local group ever came forward to champion the National Park cause. Smith says the public hearings held by the Committee were like visits to a morgue, with the same small group of people sharing the same opinions over and over. “The public doesn’t really care,” he says.
