Latest / Ranger PamPaw's Park Report / East Potomac Court Fight, Organ Pipe Water Stations, and ATVs in Gates of the Arctic

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East Potomac Court Fight, Organ Pipe Water Stations, and ATVs in Gates of the Arctic · Ranger PamPaw's Park Report

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: A fast-moving court fight over a DC golf course, a no on water stations in the Arizona Desert, and a proposal to allow off-road vehicles for subsistence in gates of the Arctic.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Mark Tutzel, Ranger Pampall, and this is the park report for Wednesday, October 21st, 2026.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: First up, a federal judge on Monday questioned the Trump administration's accounts of its tree cutting at East Potomac Gouglinks, the public course in Washington's East Potomac Park.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: This comes a day after the president announced he's closing the course for a rebuild.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Park Service began cutting trees Saturday, October 10th.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Government lawyers say 430 trees came down.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: The D.C.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Preservation League and the two golfers sued, and Judge Anna Reyes halted the work for October 26th.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: On Sunday, the president announced a 15-month closure starting November 15th with a plan from architect Tom Fazio.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: On Monday, he posted that the work would start immediately.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yet a Justice Department filing says there is no final plan.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: At a hearing that ran for more than five hours, the AP reports Judge Reyes said, quote, there is no universe in which all of this coincidentally happened at the same time.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: She took no action at the hearing and told the plaintiffs an order stopping all the work is unlikely.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Her halt through October 26th still stands.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: She had rejected the government's request that she step aside.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it stands as of this recording.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: The story is still moving, and I will provide more updates as things change.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Next up, at Oregon Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Arizona, the Park Service has denied a request from Humane Borders to maintain water stations for migrants.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: The denial letter is dated September 28th.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: KJZZ reports that it's the first time in more than two decades that the group's Park Service permit has been denied.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Humane Borders has placed water stations in Arizona's border desert since 2001.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Park Service's letter says the stations encourage migrants to travel deeper into dangerous terrain with a false sense of security.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Two other agencies have said no as well.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Fish and wildlife denied permits at Cabeza Prieta and Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuges.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bureau of Land Management won't renew one at Ironwood Forest National Monument.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: The group says 12 stations now have to come down.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Humane Borders says it puts stations where deaths have already happened, not where they draw people in.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It cites 86 migrant deaths so far by its own account.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: The group says it will comply with the denials for now and look for sites on the private land.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, the Park Service has proposed a rule that would let qualifying residents of Anuktavuk Pass use off-road vehicles for subsistence in gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Anuktavuk Pass is a village inside the park with no road access to the rest of Alaska.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: The proposal covers only eligible local rural residents.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't allow off-road recreational vehicles and would let the superintendent act on harmful impacts to park resources.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Interior says it recognizes off-road vehicles as a traditional means of transportation under Anilka, the law I'll explain in a moment.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: This follows an announcement in May when Interior Secretary Doug Bergum visited the village and said off-road access for subsistence would be restored.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Since 1986, the park has read the law as barring ATV hunting because ATVs weren't considered traditional transportation.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The village's mayor, Lillian Stone, told KNBA that residents felt like prisoners on their own land for about 40 years.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: The rule published in the Federal Register Monday, October 19th.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Comments are open for 60 days through December 18th.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Two quick ones.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: In Yellowstone, a six-year-old mayor has spent the summer with a small herd of bison near Slough Creek.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: She got away from an electric corral fence in July, and so far none of the attempts to catch her has worked.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: The park says it's working with our owner and wants her out before winter.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: She looks healthy, and the owner is hoping snow pushes her to lower ground.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: A large rockfall hit the Zion-Mont Carmel Highway on September 30th, and the park closed the road to assess and repair it.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Part of it reopened on October 6th, and the rest on Friday, October 9th.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Rockfall is a regular part of life beneath those sandstone cliffs.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now from the Ranger's chair.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Today this segment is mostly explanation, and I'll tell you when I'm giving my own opinion.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: You heard me say Anilka.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2nd, 1980.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Start with how Alaska was seen.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: When Secretary of State William Seward bought it from Russia in 1867 for about two cents an acre.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Plenty of people called it Seward's Folly.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then came gold.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in 1968, oil at Prudhoe Bay.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly a lot of people wanted to say in what happened to it.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: In 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act resolved long-standing land claims.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It also let the Interior Secretary set aside up to 80 million acres for possible protection with a deadline.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Congress let the clock run down, so in 1978, President Carter used the Antiquities Act to protect 56 million acres as national monuments.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Two years later, a compromise became a Nilka.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Passed weeks after Ronald Reagan won the presidency because its backers knew a better deal wasn't coming.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: The law added about 43 million acres of national parkland, including gates of the Arctic.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now the part that matters for Anectopusk.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Title VIII of Anilka protects subsistence for rural residents, the hunting, fishing, and gathering that Alaska's people have depended on for thousands of years.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Section 811 says the Secretary shall ensure rural residents have reasonable access to subsistence resources on public lands.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it says the secretary shall permit snowmobiles, motorboats, and other means of surface transportation traditionally employed by local residents, subject to reasonable regulation.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what's not on that list, ATVs.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they count as traditionally employed is the question behind this rule.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: The park said no in 1986.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Interior now says yes.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the comment period is for.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here's where I give you my own view on this.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Enilca is one of the greatest pieces of conservation legislation this country has ever passed.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It protected enormous wild places without pretending the people who live there don't exist.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whether this rule strikes the right balance is a fair question.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the way to weigh in on it is to read it and comment.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I put a timeline of the law and how to comment in this week's PARC Report Extra.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: What to watch for this week?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: In Washington, whether Judge Reyes extends her halt before it ends October 26th, and whether East Potomac closes November 15th, as the President announced.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in Alaska, the comment period on the gates of the Arctic rule open through December 18th.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: As always, if you catch something I got wrong, email parknews at rangerpampall.com.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Park Report.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Look for the newsletter today with more on all these stories and others.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And join us next Wednesday for the next episode of Ranger Pamphol's Park Report.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, go find your park.