What a government shutdown will likely mean for national parks

A government shutdown is about to begin, and it's likely to affect access to America's national parks. The big picture: In previous shutdowns, the parks have been closed, but President Trump kept them open during his last presidency, a decision that many National Park Service officials criticized at the time. The Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Driving the news: The government shutdown is poised to begin at midnight as Congress failed to authorize a short-term spending stopgap in time. What they're saying: The National Parks Conservation Association urged the National Park Service on Tuesday to close its parks ahead of the shutdown."A government shutdown would leave our parks understaffed and vulnerable, putting our most cherished places and millions of visitors at risk," the advocacy organization said in a press release. "With no contingency plan finalized, the Park Service still doesn't know who will be able to staff the parks and more importantly, who will not be allowed to." 40 former NPS superintendents this week also called for the government to close the parks in a letter issued to Doug Burgum, the interior secretary. "If sufficient staff aren't there, visitors shouldn't be either," the former employees wrote. "National parks don't run themselves. It is hard-working National Park Service employees that keep them safe, clean and accessible."Zoom out: The NPS is already stretched thin. More than 750 U.S. national park workers have been fired amid the Trump administration's purge of federal employees, per an unofficial tally shared with Axios by a park ranger in March. What happened to national parks during the 2019 shutdownFlashback: In the last shutdown, in 2019, the government closed for 35 days, during which time the national parks remained open with a "skeleton crew" of workers, the NPCA described. The NPCA said that "the damage that occurred" then "took many parks months, some years, to recover from." The group also described much of the well-documented damage as "irreparable" —wrecked park infrastructure from illegal off-roading, stolen artifacts, vandalized prehistoric petroglyphs and chopped down trees.When to expect a decision about parksThe Department of the Interior's contingency plans, dated March 2024 on its website, state that in general, sites will be "closed during the period of a lapse in appropriations."According to the 2024 plan, parks will begin notifying visitors on the first day of the lapse and wind down "routine visitor services" the same day if the larger shutdown commences on a weekday."NPS will execute its orderly closure and service curtailment directives on the following Monday," per the website.