Jan. 27, 2002 – With 1.2 million visitors a year, the Virgin Islands National Park has reached the saturation point, Supt. John King said Sunday at the annual Friends of the Park meeting, held at Cinnamon Bay Campground's T'ree Lizards Restaurant.
"We don't have the luxury of a Yellowstone or Grand Canyon to spread out," King said, referring to two national parks with vast acreage.
With only 15,000 acres calculating both land and surrounding water, the park crams a lot of people into a small space, he said, and this poses many management problems.
In response to a question about parking problems that arise when many people visit a site at one time, King said the park plans to build an overflow parking area at Cinnamon Bay with about 16 spaces, as well as a parking lot for safari buses at Trunk Bay.
"We've got a terrible situation there. The lots are jammed to overflow," King said to the more than 100 people gathered for the meeting.
He said the park also plans to develop a scheduled and affordable shuttle bus system from Cruz Bay to various park areas. He said this should help alleviate the number of cars vying for parking spaces at popular beaches and attractions. For the shuttle service, "We will utilize the infrastructure, equipment and drivers that currently do business," he said, referring to the island's taxi drivers.
In an update on all park activities throughout 2001, King noted the new Commercial Services Plan that took effect Jan. 1. Implementation of the plan was one of the most significant accomplishments made last year, he said, in that "it helped us to professionalize our relationship with the business community."
The one controversial aspect of the plan is its requirement that all tour operators and taxi drivers conducting tours acquire annual permits to use park facilities. "Some took umbrage at that," he said, referring to the brouhaha that erupted several months ago when the St. John Taxi Association announced it would not comply with the new requirement. King said all other tour operators have gotten the necessary permits.
After the meeting, King said that since Jan. 1, park rangers have issued 18 warnings to drivers who were using park facilities but did not have permits. "Several of those issued warnings have come in and gotten permits," he said.
About a dozen of the St. John Taxi Association's 60 members have paid for individual $75 permits, he said. The association could have gotten an umbrella permit for $250 a year that would have covered all of its member drivers, he noted.
The legality of the permits requirement is now in court. The taxi association filed suit in U.S. District Court asking that the park be prevented from charging the taxi tour operators a fee to use the park facilities. King said it would take another two or three months for the park's attorneys to prepare their legal work.
Once the court issues a ruling, "Then closure will be brought to that question," he said. Since Congress mandated that all national parks develop a Commercial Services Plan and since tour operators pay for permits in all other parks, King said he expects the park to prevail in the legal action.
For 2002, he said, a new general management plan, the first since 1983, is on the drawing board. It will enable the park to plan for the next 15 to 20 years, he said.
Robert Stanton, director of the National Park Service in the Clinton administration, was the keynote speaker for Sunday's meeting. A career NPS employee who began work as a seasonal ranger at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, he was superintendent of the V.I. National Park from 1971 to 1974.
"One of my most memorable experiences was serving as graduation speaker at Julius E. Sprauve School," Stanton said, motioning for the then-principal, Roy Sewer, to stand up.
Stanton spoke about the importance of national parks to the nation. Mentioning their cultural and environmental diversity, he said described them as resources that "sustain us as human beings."
