US Interior cancels maintenance, programming at national parks, including several New Mexico sites

The U.S. Department of the Interior has canceled contracts to conduct routine maintenance and programming at numerous national parks and downgraded nearly 1,500 more projects across the country to “low priority” status, including several in New Mexico, according to the nonpartisan conservation group Center for Western Priorities.

The conservation group pulled records from an internal National Park Service database and published them in an interactive map that contains details for each of the canceled or downgraded projects. Many of the entries contain notes that park officials wrote about the projects’ importance.

New Mexico’s cuts so far include $8,000 to continue operating eight weather stations in Valles Caldera National Preserve; $169,127 to submit documentation on Petroglyph National Monument’s significance to 29 tribes and pueblos to the National Register; $100,607 to finish taking stock of old museum records at Aztec Ruins National Monument and identify items that could be returned to Indigenous communities; and $30,984 for the National Trails Office to manage national park programs along Route 66 and other culturally significant roads.

A spokesperson for the Interior Department previously told the Washington Post that the department specifically focused on nixing deals that are “actively working against the best interests of the American people and the priorities of this administration.”

In addition to cutting projects, the federal agency also has downgraded nearly 1,500 — including 29 in New Mexico — as lower priority.

Advocates like Center for Western Priorities Creative Content and Policy Manager Lilly Bock-Brownstein contend that the federal agency is unfairly targeting “everyday projects that keep parks open and running,” particularly those that the Interior Department recently classified as “low priority.”

“Roof repairs, replacing outdated computers, even buying toilet paper and garbage bags — none of that is low priority. It’s the basic work national parks need to function,” she said in a statement.

Downgraded projects in New Mexico include replacing failing septic tanks at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, which park officials wrote are “past the normal lifecycle of a concrete septic tank.” Not replacing them could lead to sewage leaking into the surrounding area’s groundwater.

At Petroglyph National Monument, park staff labeled a project to replace failing HVAC systems at the visitor’s center an “emergency,” but it is also among the newly designated “low priority projects.” 

In Pecos National Historical Park, the Interior Department downgraded funding for a certified medical director who works with on-site law enforcement officers and rangers.

And at White Sands National Park, the Interior Department downgraded several repairs, including fixing visitor center exhibits that have fallen into disrepair; replacing fencing around sewage lagoons; installing new signage and preserving historic signs; and adding a fence to “protect critical infrastructure” at the park’s water tanks.

“It is illuminating to see which repairs and purchases were pushed aside so Secretary (Doug) Burgum could pay for President Trump’s vanity projects in Washington,” Bock-Brownstein said in a statement. “The National Park Service is supposed to protect every park. Instead, parks across the country are being neglected while money flows to the president’s pet projects.”

Neither the Department of the Interior nor the National Park Service immediately responded to Source NM’s requests for comment.