Push to make Mount St. Helens a national park

OLYMPIA — There are rumblings around Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, but they have nothing to do with the flow of lava inside the crater.

Instead, these rumblings are calls for the National Park Service to take over Mount St. Helens from the U.S. Forest Service.

The Gifford Pinchot National Forest's recent decision to permanently close the Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center — the only year-round visitor center with a clear view of the steaming crater — set off political shock waves.

"Mount St. Helens is a national gem," said Sean Smith, northwest regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. "The volcano deserves the recognition and increased visits that come with national park status."

The National Parks Conservation Association is leading the push to make Mount St. Helens a national park.

Smith said the move would:

• Boost visits to Mount St. Helens, as people tend to want to visit national parks.

• Give Mount St. Helens more services and an increased budget.

• Boost tourism in gateway towns near Mount St. Helens, such as Kelso, Castle Rock and Amboy.

It is unlikely that the National Park Service would have closed Coldwater Ridge, Smith said.

"The National Park Service has a more secure budget and a long history of running similar places," he said.

The closure of Coldwater Ridge means that people who drive to Mount St. Helens during the late fall, winter and early spring will have no visitor center with a good view of the crater. Johnston Ridge Observatory, another visitor center that is only five miles from the crater, is closed from November to May each year.

Mount St. Helens managers say that Coldwater Ridge, which cost $11.5 million to build, has $2 million of deferred maintenance and is too expensive to keep open during a time of steep budget cuts for the Forest Service.

The solution is simple, Smith said. "People want to see the newest national park, and that alone would provide a bump in visitation and investment."

It's not easy to create a new national park — and the National Park Service is struggling with budget problems of its own.

The National Park Service, which has an $8 billion maintenance backlog — including $1 billion of critical work — has not asked to take on Mount St. Helens, said Jeffrey Olson, a Washington, D.C.-based park service spokesman. New national parks are born when local people get excited about the idea and drum up support — including from their state's U.S. representatives and senators, Olson said.

Then Congress must decide whether the idea should be studied.

There are usually 10 to 20 areas under study to become a national park at any given time, Olson said.

"Out of every two-dozen studies, maybe one area is chosen to become a unit of the National Park Service," Olson said.

Then a bill must be introduced in Congress, passed and signed by the president.

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat, represents the area near Mount St. Helens, but he is not yet convinced that the monument should become a national park.

"I think it's worth exploring," Baird said. "But this should be studied to determine whether it's a good idea."

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Baird have created an advisory group that will hold public meetings and study whether Mount St. Helens should be a national park.

Nearby residents, user groups — such as hunters and snowmobilers — and the Forest Service and the National Park Service will be part of the discussion, Baird said.

Hunting is not allowed in national parks, and the use of snowmobiles is controversial. The area around Mount St. Helens is very popular for deer and elk hunting.

The group will begin meeting in the spring of 2008 and should have some conclusions by early summer, Baird said.

Mount St. Helens does deserve more attention, Baird said.

"We want people to explore and learn about this memorable place," Baird said.

The Gifford Pinchot National Forest — which runs the Mount St. Helens volcanic monument — doesn't have a position on whether a national park is a good idea, said Ron Freeman, acting forest supervisor.

"We think we're doing fine," Freeman said.

Many people don't realize that much of Mount St. Helens is set aside for scientific studies, Freeman said.

About a third of the monument's budget is for recreational programs, while the rest is for maintenance and science, Freeman said.

And keeping things running is expensive.

Maintaining the Spirit Lake Tunnel — which was created to protect downstream areas from sudden floods — has cost the monument $2 million in recent years, Freeman said.

Recent road maintenance cost $1 million.

Smith said national parks do have a big deferred maintenance backlog. But a National Parks Conservation Association study shows that each federal dollar invested in a national park creates four dollars in economic benefits for nearby communities,

The Forest Service is chopping public services at Mount St. Helens, so a new national park is the only way to keep and expand offerings at the volcano, Smith said.

"Mount St. Helens is a national gem on a par with Yosemite or Yellowstone," Smith said. "And more visits means more investment."