Across-the-bay neighbor warns public to be skeptical of Hook proposal

By its founding legislation, our National Park Service (NPS) is required to protect and conserve the lands under its control “unimpaired … for the enjoyment of future generations.” The legislation, written in 1916, recognizes that there are exceptional American places — both natural and historic — that should be preserved intact for the benefit of all our people, that should not be dug up, chopped down, paved over or otherwise compromised by the private profit motive.

So it is with the Gateway National Recreation Area, controlled by the NPS, of which Sandy Hook is part. Sandy Hook is actually a valuable combination of natural, historic and recreational places, what with its old military buildings, its exceptional shoreline and vegetation, the shelter and joy it provides to flying, swimming and crawling creatures as well as to those of us who walk upright and use binoculars, beach chairs and surf-casting rods.

But our National Park Service, once renowned for devotion to its founding principles, is now under sway of a United States president and interior department appointees who have trouble trusting any enterprise not dedicated to the profit motive, who have a demonstrable contempt for those lovely and unimpaired portions of our national landscape that are not cranking out dollars for somebody or other. And it is in that context, in return for rehabilitation of 36 Fort Hancock buildings, that today’s park service seeks to offer a private developer, not necessarily a publicly sensitive developer, the chance to build and rent out office space, restaurants, parking lots and more — maybe far more, during the next 60 years — upon the fragile 1,700 acres of Sandy Hook that all of us own together.

As owners, and as members of the future generations of park visitors, we Americans should be eternally skeptical of any scheme that promotes private money-making within the boundaries of our public land.

The profit motive — valid and essential in everyday economic society — invariably conflicts with legal and traditional park service purposes including protection of natural resources and provision of free or low-cost park access to the public.

Sandy Hook is by no means the Bush administration’s first attempt to privatize portions of our public lands.

And with a bounding national debt — $7,355,728,967,314.85 (that’s yesterday’s figure; today, with interest, it’s $1.69 billion higher) — it will surely not be the last.

Jack Hope

New York City