Date: August 24, 2007
Contact: Nancy Gray, (865) 436-1208

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Dale A. Ditmanson announced today the selection of 13 eligible National Park Service (NPS) Centennial Challenge projects totaling $4,276,600 to be considered under the President’s proposed Fiscal Year 2008 National Park Service budget which begins October 1, 2007.

National Park Service Director Mary Bomar and Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced at a press conference in Yosemite National Park yesterday a list that includes more than 200 projects and programs in 116 parks to be considered.

The Centennial Challenge projects are part of the National Park Service’s 2016 Centennial Initiative, an effort to provide the necessary resources to restore and better protect the parks and prepare them for the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary in 2016 and beyond. The Centennial Initiative, a centerpiece of the President’s proposed Fiscal Year 2008 National Park Service budget, is designed to provide up to $3 billion for investment in the National Park System over a period of 10 years. It includes $100 million of additional operating funds for parks each year and up to $200 million a year for signature projects and programs, a 1-to-1 ratio of private matching donation.

NPS Director Bomar said, "I’ve testified before Senate and House subcommittees and judging by the warm reception we received, I believe Congress will include Centennial Challenge money in our next budget. We look forward to working with members from both sides of the aisle to provide the key to the centennial challenge. When that happens we can make decisions on which of these wonderful proposals to begin in the fall."

"The park faired very well in this first round and we are extremely pleased. The Smokies is exceedingly fortunate to have many successful partners. Two of those partners are well-established and provide annual monetary support to the park’s education, natural and cultural resource preservation, visitor protection, and facility improvement," said Park Superintendent Ditmanson. He continued, "Since the Friends of the Smokies formation in 1993, it has generated over $19 million through philanthropy to support the park’s critical needs. The park’s cooperating association, Great Smoky Mountains Association, has provided $18 million generated through sales of education materials since its beginning in 1953. Both groups are now ideally positioned to fund NPS centennial projects and the Friends, in particular, will be able to take advantage of the private-federal match to stimulate future donations."

The NPS recommendation of Smokies projects includes:

• Expansion of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory
• Develop audio and video podcasts to educate visitors
• Native brook trout restoration
• Develop Parks as Classrooms educational program with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
• Implement improved research of airborne mercury pollution
• Expand suppression efforts of the invasive nonnative hemlock woolly adelgid
• Conduct research to determine impacts of storm events on aquatic ecosystems
• Expand the Student Conservation Association intern program
• Establish a permanent elk population
• Complete the Development Concept Plan/General Management Plan for Elkmont Historic District
• Provide educational opportunities to underserved visitors through a mobile visitor center
• Develop new exhibits in the proposed Oconaluftee Visitor Center
• Rehabilitate the natural history-themed exhibits at the Sugarlands Visitor Center

"If these projects move forward through the budget process and to the next phase," said Ditmanson, "the Park will have a tremendous opportunity to provide expanded visitor services and programs and meet our natural and cultural resource challenges. We will be able to present new rich experiences to visitors through improved and new technology programs and services, new media to capture the imagination of a new generation to connect them to the park, and expand our science and research activities to help us manage these resources with greater knowledge."

The potential Centennial Challenge signature projects are in addition to a proposed $1.9 million increase for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park earmarked for cost of living raises, seasonal employee hires, and volunteer program enhancement under the President’s budget. A $1.9 million increase to the Park’s base funding would be the largest increase in the Park’s history.

The full list of NPS centennial challenge-eligible projects and programs and remarks by NPS Director Bomar and Secretary Kempthorne are available on-line at the National Park Service’s web site www.nps.gov/2016