1st Massachusetts Monument at Sunset, Gettysburg National Military Park
If you’ve ever been to Gettysburg National Military Park, you’ve experienced the impact of one of the United States’ most effective and unique conservation programs. Any textbook can tell you what battles were fought here, and what speeches were given, but standing on a field staring out across the landscape where thousands of men died creates a unique bond to history, one that a textbook can’t even hope to replicate. It’s an educational and highly emotional experience, one that’s only possible because of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Fifty years ago, Congress created the fund to utilize royalties paid by energy companies for extracting fossil fuels in order to protect open land and heritage sites. Since that time, the fund has purchased and protected thousands of acres of land from development, including historic sites like Gettysburg. In theory, the fund can receive up to 900 million dollars each year; in recent years, legislators have allocated a fraction of this, sometimes less than $100 million. On September 30th, Congress allowed funding for the LWCF to expire completely. In squabbling over how we spend these dollars, not a dime of which comes from the taxpayer, Congress has placed our country’s heritage and unprotected open space in jeopardy.
Gettysburg is a famous name, but the Land and Water Conservation Fund has helped create public parks and preserve open spaces in every single county in the United States. The fund has provided over five and a half billion dollars to protect open space, endangered species, and cultural heritage since its creation in 1964. In New York, a child might learn to throw a baseball on a field preserved by the fund at the Gateway National Recreation Area while in Nevada, a researcher might make a breakthrough in fish ecology at Desert National Wildlife Refuge. These projects, both supported by the LWCF, are about more than just preserving open space; they’re about giving future generations the opportunity to experience and learn about the world around us.
They’re also a way to come to terms with a complicated history. Gateway National Recreation Area preserves sites like Fort Hancock and Fort Wadsworth, creating a recreation area from what might otherwise have been the crumbling ruins of the 18th and 19th-century forts that protected New York Harbor. These sites prevent us from creating an idealized past in which our predecessors got everything right, and instead force us to confront what we want our country to be. At Gateway National Recreation Area, the Revolutionary War isn’t a victory by plucky Americans over a faceless foe, it’s a place where George Washington scrambled to place troops, miscalculated, and nearly lost New York to British forces. In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the fund contributed ten million dollars to memorialize those who died on Flight 93 on September 11th, ensuring that site would remain protected for generations to come. These are heavy responsibilities, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund has upheld them. Until now.
The future of land acquisitions like these is in jeopardy. In 2016, the fund can support the purchase of another parcel of land at Gettysburg. It’s called McAllister’s Mill, and it’s the only Underground Railroad site in Gettysburg. Without the fund, this site might be bulldozed as part of the development springing up around the park. With the fund’s help, the United States has an important opportunity to further confront America’s racial history and connect it to the battles and speeches of the Civil War. By allowing the Land and Water Conservation Fund to expire, however, legislators have put American heritage and open space in grave danger of disappearing.
According to the National Park Service, McAllister’s Mill is just one of many sites on the backlogged Federal acquisitions list. To protect them all would take up to 30 billion dollars– or 34 years of a fully funded Land and Water Conservation Fund. We will not have this opportunity again, and we will not have these lands for long. The United States loses nearly six thousand acres of open space each day to construction and development. Right now, lawmakers have a chance to hold on to something incredible– the ability to protect these spaces before they disappear forever. Legislators on both sides of the aisle must act to renew and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and they must do so now.