This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Nearly one month into the federal government shutdown, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park remains open to the public, and the National Forest Service’s logging and disaster response capabilities remain active.
According to the contingency plans for the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service, non-emergency operations are supposed to remain closed during a federal shutdown. But this year, national parks and forests in the region are keeping their doors a little more open than usual.
To keep the Great Smoky Mountains National Park open to the public for now, local governments in Tennessee and North Carolina, and recreation-advocacy groups have combined funds to pay many employees. Meanwhile, most non-emergency Forest Service employees have been furloughed, but what that means is a little different than before.
Federal ‘timber emergency’ allows logging to continue in National Forests
“It seems that there is an effort to keep the lights on, in a way that we haven't seen in past shutdowns,” said Sam Evans, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, who is concerned that timber sales are ongoing.
Most non-emergency Forest Service employees have been furloughed due to the government shutdown. Advocates like Evans are concerned that this may make logging operations less transparent.
The Forest Service Timber Sales page, meanwhile, shows one active timber sale in the Tusquitee Ranger District out for bid.
“We've got forests in our region putting timber sales out for bid, entering into contracts with loggers, like the logging work is still happening,” Evans said. “What's not apparently happening is a lot of public engagement, right? Like, I am not able right now to get meetings with the Forest Service.”
Travis Joseph, the president of the American Forest Resource Council, a national forestry trade association, told BPR that the federal declaration of a “national timber emergency” allows Forest Service timber sales to continue.
“Planning of timber sales, execution of timber sales, payment of timber sales, monitoring of the contracts are all moving forward,” Joseph said, alongside other emergency functions like controlled burns and disaster preparedness. “The complicating piece of this is that under a government shutdown, of course, that the government is not allocating money.”
This may only last as long as the agency can tap its financial reserves - likely just weeks. Under the Anti-Deficiency Act, it’s illegal for an agency to allocate money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.
“If there isn't a change in Congress, I think that the Forest Service is going to face some really serious decisions about what to do,” Joseph said. “Not just with, you know, timber projects and logging, but also recreation and keeping public lands open.”
This comes after the Forest Service announced in September that, a year after Hurricane Helene, 93% of trails and 97% of roads closed due to the storm had been reopened.
The Forest Service did not respond directly due to the shutdown, but told BPR that recreation sites will remain open to the public and disaster response capabilities remain active.
Local governments continue to pay out of pocket for national parks
According to Jim Matheny of Friends of the Smokies, that time crunch is going to hit the National Park before long. Currently, a coalition of local governments and nonprofits is are paying the Department of the Interior $60,000 per day to ward off furloughs of 275 park employees.
Those contributing are: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Friends of the Smokies, the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, Blount County government in Tenn., and the Tennessee cities of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.
That agreement was previously extended to October 19 and has now been extended again to November 2. Much longer, though, and everyone might run out of money.
“What has to happen after that is Congress is going to have to say, ‘Hey, we're going to pay you back.’ That's not a guarantee, but it is certainly our hope that everyone is going to be reimbursed for basically footing the bill for the federal government,” Matheny said.
This is not the first time the park has done this, and other parks are in a similar position, seeing the tourist dollars during peak fall color season as too essential to pass up. Just after the shutdown was announced, the state of West Virginia donated $100,000 to the National Park Service to keep the New River Gorge National Park open for two weeks.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park also did not return a request for comment.
