As park fees go to DC, Yellowstone, Grand Teton face $1.5B backlog

Major national park units in Wyoming face a combined $1.6 billion maintenance backlog for roads, trails, sewerage and more, as critics say locally generated fees are being spent on President Donald Trump’s “vanity” projects in Washington.

Yellowstone National Park alone needs $523 million for paved roads, $218 million for housing, $211 million for water systems and $74 million for sewerage, a 2025 federal inventory shows. In Grand Teton, roads need $167 million, buildings are $118 million behind, trails need $16 million and wastewater systems another $8.8 million.

Critics have needled Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and other administration officials about millions of dollars being spent to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall and for a July 4 fireworks show while parks are in disrepair. Reports that national park entrance fees are being used in D.C., not to preserve the parks where they are collected, aggravate the discontent.

“The administration has been plundering our national parks since it came into office, and Freedom 250 [the July 4 celebration in D.C.] is now the latest affront,” Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, said in a statement Thursday. “The administration’s decision to now take those hard-earned fees away from parks and put them towards the President’s vanity projects adds further insult to injury.”

The Department of the Interior said Wednesday it has “many funding sources available” to address the parks’ backlog. “The Trump administration is looking at different funding mechanisms which include endowment funds and revenue brought in from the sale of park passes,” a spokesperson at the Interior Department wrote WyoFile in an email.

‘Wrong, misguided’

Criticism of the Trump administration’s parks budget priorities began in May at the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee’s hearing on the president’s 2027 budget.

“It seems to me that you are more focused on D.C. [than] over roads, trails, and buildings in our national parks across the country,” Washington State Rep. Emily Randall, a Democrat, said to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “Your budget asks for $10 billion for a new, ‘Presidential Capital Stewardship Program for priority construction and beautification projects in and around Washington, D.C.,’” she said.

“At the same time, your budget asks for less than $3 billion for repairs and maintenance in parks in the rest of the country next year.”

Burgum’s critics on the committee cited Trump’s “vanity projects” eight times. Burgum challenged the characterization.

“Everybody wanted to have a clean, safe, and beautiful Washington, D.C.,” he said, but if this president makes it a priority and personally says, ‘We’re gonna get it done for our 250th,’ then the word vanity gets inserted.”

Just after the hearing, The New York Times reported that the administration is using at least $67 million in visitors’ fees on the reflecting pool and D.C. fountains. The Washington Post recently reported $1.6 million in park entrance fees are being spent on a July 4 fireworks show while parks are in disrepair.

Burgum’s department defended its priorities this week. “The National Park Service has not only been focused on beautifying the district but has also been working on many deferred maintenance projects throughout the country,” its Wednesday statement reads.

Unconvinced

Conservationists aren’t buying it.

On America’s 250th anniversary, “we should be preserving America’s best idea by investing in our parks — not looting them,” Thompson, whose organization represents former and current park employees, wrote to WyoFile.

“Since the administration cut 25% of permanent National Park Service employees but required parks to remain open, overburdened staff have been diverted from their normal roles to man entrance booths and collect fees,” her statement reads. “Exhausted staff are being denied leave and others sent to Washington D.C. to support the events, while operations at the parks continue to struggle.”

At the budget hearing in May, Rep. Randall held up a photograph from Olympic National Park, which is in her congressional district, to challenge Burgum’s priorities.

“This is a popular trail taken by young families, and is very clearly a safety hazard,” she said, citing a $300 million maintenance backlog at Olympic. She contrasted that with a photograph of the reflecting pool.

“Which do you think should be the higher priority, fixing a bridge that is a safety hazard for hikers or changing the bottom of the reflecting pool?”

Burgum replied: “Well, my answer would be both.”

“This is wrong,” Randall said of the budget priorities. “It’s misguided.”

Devils Tower, Bighorn Canyon too

Wyoming national parks’ $1.6 billion in “deferred maintenance and repairs” accounts only for “correction of existing deficiencies,” according to agency fact sheets. Upgrades to meet building codes, new fire systems and expansions to match increased visitation are not included in the figures, nor are annual maintenance needs.

“Without this investment, asset conditions will continue to deteriorate, compounding long-term costs and increasing the deferred maintenance backlog,” the fact sheets state. Nationwide, the parks face “more than $30 billion worth of deferred maintenance,” Burgam told Congress in April.

In addition to the deficiencies in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, other National Park Service units in Wyoming are suffering. At Devils Tower National Monument, the nation’s first national monument, there’s a $10 million backlog.

That includes $3.9 million for roads, $2.2 million for buildings, almost $1 million for housing, $825,000 for campgrounds and $601,000 for water systems.

Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area suffers from a $74 million backlog. Paved roads are $26 million in the red, unpaved roads add another $7.7 million. At Fossil Butte National Monument, paved roads need $5 million in deferred maintenance and other facilities also are degraded.

Americans love their national parks and are willing to support them, contributing millions of dollars to rehabilitate worn, eroding trails and popular public spaces to acceptable, inviting conditions. In Grand Teton National Park, for example, a project completed in 2019 to rehabilitate the popular and heavily used Jenny Lake area drew $14.5 million in private donations.

The Park Service contributed more than $6 million, according to the nonprofit Grand Teton National Park Foundation. Workers moved 2,550 tons of stones and masonry, reconstructed 5.2 miles of trails, built five bridges and rehabbed three historic structures.

“National Park Service crews dramatically improved access to iconic places such as Inspiration Point and Hidden Falls by building new stone steps, smoothing and leveling trails, and ensuring better drainage for rainwater and snowmelt,” the nonprofit wrote about the accomplishments. The rehabilitation “reduces congestion and ambiguity by creating suggested directional trails, larger boat docks, increased restroom facilities, and designated areas to rest and take in the stunning views.”

Thompson, director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, suggested it’s uncertain whether the Park Service could do as much today.

“Repairs and maintenance specifically have long been difficult to manage, and with neither the staff nor the money to handle them, parks are put further at risk,” she said in her statement.