Scotts Bluff Administrative History

PART II:
Operating The National Monument (continued)

MANAGEMENT APPRAISAL AND OPERATIONS EVALUATION REPORTS

A series of management/operations reports were written in the late 1960s and 1970s for Scotts Bluff. A management appraisal report in 1969 recommended that a permanent historian position be reestablished for the historic area and that the position of maintenance foreman I be established. It also recommended that a "bus or alternate type of transportation" be adopted to transport visitors to the summit, and that burning in the incinerator at headquarters be discontinued. From this point on, all solid waste was taken to the sanitary dump in Gering. [74]

An operations evaluation report (OER) in 1970 also endorsed the question of reestablishing a permanent historian position at the monument. The historian's talent would be devoted to both natural and historical concerns within the interpretive program, resource management, visitor activities, and maintenance. The OER also called for the removal of the maintenance workshop from the visitor center basement. The room more appropriately could then be used for a meeting place for staff and students, the ESA program, and the monument library, thereby alleviating congestion in other areas of the building. [75]

Recommendations in a 1972 OER included cataloguing and accessioning the Cook Collection, increased utilization of special employment programs like the Neighborhood Youth Corps (NYC), revision of the publications display and information service in the visitor center lobby, and the separation of cooperating association funds (OTMA) from Government accounts. [76]

A 1975 OER commented on an aborted architectural and engineering (A&E) planning effort at the monument. The A&E team ignored the requested minor revisions for the master plan and "ran amuck" producing a "grandiose set of redevelopments." The A&E planning report was written off as a total loss. The recommendation in the 1975 OER called for the Midwest Regional Office to provide the required A&E expertise to make the minor revisions in the master plan.

Another area the 1975 OER discussed was the visitor entrance to the summit road between the visitor center and the park residence. It termed the area "poorly designed, congested and narrow," and advised that the entrance station or kiosk be replaced.

The 1975 OER praised the interpretive exhibits at the monument stating that the visitor center "is pleasing and a credit to the National Park Service." Praise was also given to the living history/cultural demonstration program. It noted that the program centered around the replica Conestoga wagon where demonstrators are involved in fire making, preparation of sourdough, cooking hotcakes, preparing a salt pork and coffee meal, repairing a wagon wheel and other maintenance tasks, and general homemaking chores. The OER recognized the popularity of the living history program by the large numbers of visitors in attendance and their involvement in the program. Especially appreciated was the distribution of samples of the prepared foodstuffs to the visitors. This popular practice was adopted, however, only after an official sanction was received from the Scotts Bluff County Sanitarian and the U. S. Public Health Service. [77]

The same Operations Evaluation Team returned three years later and commented that "a great amount of progress has been made" at the monument since the 1975 OER was written. Much of the progress came in the field of administration:

The management climate is generally open, communicative and is utilizing delegations effectively. The gains in this regard are most dramatic in terms of how the operating budgets are formulated and executed. We were pleased to note that the park, as seen by the visitor, is very presentable and is obviously receiving adequate care by the maintenance division. [78]

The 1978 OER determined that the major management deficiency was in the lack of long-range planning and priorities: "There is not a unity of understanding regarding managements' goals and priorities by personnel." [79]

CORE MISSION/BASIC OPERATIONS

In 1981, the Office of Management and Budget requested that all Federal agencies formulating their F.Y. 1982 budgets operate each organizational unit at the "minimum acceptable level" to assist the Reagan administration to combat escalating Federal budget deficits and spur economic recovery. Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt and NPS Director Russell E. Dickenson concurred, and stated that their respective agencies should "get back to the basics" and exercise fiscal restraint. In response to a letter from Director Dickenson dated October 16, 1981, the mandate of the NPS was for each park to formulate its own Core Mission Declaration. The initiative within the Midwest Region, as in the other nine regions, was termed "Basic Operations." The Basic Operations objectives at Scotts Bluff National Monument determined in November 1981 are:

To preserve and protect the natural resources of the park from deterioration caused by all but natural processes.

To preserve and protect the primary cultural resources within the park, here defined as the remnant Oregon Trail and the museum collection, from all deterioration as much as possible and feasible. And to provide secondary (archeological) resources protection or salvage as management of other resources dictates.

To provide most park visitors the opportunity to both view and experience those features of historic significance for which the area was established, and to acquire knowledge of the life of the pioneers as they crossed the Oregon Trail and the meaning of the park resources to them.

To interpret, primarily through exhibits, the geological story of the bluffs.

To protect park visitors, employees, and resources in compliance with acceptable health and safety codes and standard law enforcement practice.

To prevent deterioration of those structures and works which comprise the physical plant of the park.

To maintain the visual integrity of Mitchell Pass, and its approaches. [80]

Under the Basic Operations program, Superintendent Alford J. Banta pledged that Scotts Bluff would:

Postpone or not undertake the restoration of prairie to six parcels of land acquired through recent land acquisition.

End off-site interpretive programs (already limited) and discontinue work with the environmental study area.

Reduce evening programs and special events to those funded largely by donation and requiring little preparation.

Postpone indefinitely additional land acquisition. [81]

Inflation and extremely severe budgetary constraints in early 1980 saw Scotts Bluff already tightening its belt a year before the NPS Core Mission initiative was announced. Summer operating hours were reduced one hour from 8 a.m.-8 p.m. to 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Living history demonstrations, which previously were four times a week, were limited to weekends only. Seasonals on the Interpretation and Resource Management (I&RM) staff were reduced by three, and the janitorial staff was cut to only one. [82]

Currently Scotts Bluff continues to operate under its Basic Operations program. Land acquisition of two private inholdings remains on the table, but work on prairie restoration has progressed. [83]

SOIL AND MOISTURE CONSERVATION AND WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

The climate of the central prairie is characterized by hot, dry summers and cold winters. Scotts Bluff receives an average of 15 inches of precipitation annually, with most of the precipitation falling in spring or early summer. With the semi-arid climate, revegetation of disturbed areas is slow. Even with normal amounts of precipitation, ground cover requires two to three years to reestablish itself. Combined with the erosion-producing aspect of the indigenous high winds and intensive visitor use, the potential for substantial damage to vegetation and soil is great. The picnic area was obliterated in the 1940s when abuse and overuse of the area reduced it to dust-bowl conditions.

Beginning in the early 1960s, a revegetation program was adopted to ensure that similar damage was not done to the summit area where heavy foot traffic had destroyed the grass cover and exposed sizeable portions of the delicate bluffs to the eroding winds. This is the principal reason why monument trails are paved. [84]

Trail short cutting is a problem, particularly on the summit. Visitors trample vegetation adjacent to the trails and along paths they create at unauthorized locations. By the mid-1960s, experiments with revegetation in these areas under the soil and moisture conservation program began to show encouraging results. By transplanting the omnipresent yucca plants in the problem areas, visitors are discouraged from diverting from the established trails. [85]

Weed infestation is another problem. Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), an Old World herb with small purple or white flower heads, can cause havoc on prairie lands. In 1965, the infestation of Canada thistle, a troublesome weed in North America, was rampant along the North Platte and monument boundaries. A community weed control district was organized and in a cooperative effort, an ongoing program of vigorous control of Canada thistle and other noxious weeds was carried out on adjoining lands. [86]

A severe drought struck the monument in 1964 and 1965. Normal precipitation from the period of July 1 through April 30 is 8.66 inches, but actual precipitation was 3.52 inches during this period. Dry conditions killed hundreds of junipers and posed a potential fire hazard. The lack of precipitation contributed to the weakening of the ponderosa pines and the introduction of a needle blight infestation. A spraying program was undertaken by the NPS and the U.S Forest Service. Two separate spraying sessions were conducted to control the pine aphid infestation. Special attention was devoted to nearly 1,000 such trees on the summit and approach areas which are highly susceptible to blight and other types of disease and insect attack. [87]

A large reseeding program was undertaken in the early 1970s along the western boundary. The Morrison tract, totaling nearly 72 acres of farmland, was reseeded with western wheatgrass, blue grama, little bluestem, and side oats grama, a native grass seed mixture recommended by the Soil and Conservation Service. A grass mower was purchased for the first 40 acres of the newly-seeded tract to reduce competition from annual weeds. [88] The next year the remaining 32 acres were plowed and seeded into millet, but dry conditions prevented them from reseeding. [89] In 1974, they were plowed and seeded with cane in the spring, then disked and seeded with native grasses in the late fall. [90]

A fire management plan, instituted in 1983, initiated prescribed burn operations in the park. Approximately 800 acres were involved in the controlled burn program. [91]

Erosion problems along the remnant of the Oregon Trail in Mitchell Pass in the early 1980s resulted in a planning effort to combat the destruction of the precious cultural resource. Water run-off in the wagon trough through Mitchell Pass accelerated the natural erosional process "damaging the trace" and "creating tripping hazards for park visitors." [92] A Fiscal Year 1983 cyclic maintenance project provided for preliminary planning for erosion control and drainage along the historic trail. [93]

Erosion, however, is precisely how the natural environment of the badlands formed. Former Custodian Merrill J. Mattes recalled one day when the monument received seven inches of rain all at once and he witnessed a vivid demonstration of badlands erosion:

One day we had 7 inches coming down all at once--a real cloudburst. We were safely inside. Afterward, I stepped out and heard a roaring sound. What it was was water from the bluffs rushing down and into the badlands with tremendous velocity just like it was going through a steam turbine into a reservoir. I walked over there and here this water was just roaring through there in the badlands which are normally dry. . . . That was a very dramatic demonstration of erosion you get which is only occasional, but when it happens, it's violent. [94]

In the area of wildlife management, the birds and other animals on monument property are protected by Federal law. During the annual hunting season, NPS Rangers patrol the monument to discourage poachers from killing any of the deer or other creatures which inhabit monument grounds. Inevitably, deer are killed unintentionally by passing motorists on Nebraska 92. Three deer were killed in this manner in 1979, for example. [95]

An old wildlife management concern reappeared after 40 years in late 1981. Prairie dogs, vanished from Scotts Bluff since 1943 when they were poisoned and driven out by farmers, established a colony in the northwest section of the monument. It remains a mystery from where the prairie dogs came, but a monitoring plan to document the number and movement patterns of the animals is required for administrators to manage the new colony effectively. [96]