WOODBRIDGE, Va. — The Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge — established
over 30 years ago to protect a colony of bald eagles from development
sprawling from Washington, D.C. — is now being threatened from within.
An invasion of habitat-destroying weeds, reports of prostitution in the
visitors' parking lot, a depleted operating budget and a shrinking
staff to oversee Mason Neck and its two sister refuges in Northern
Virginia are raising questions about the preserves' long-term future.
Fish and Wildlife Service budget cuts have claimed three of the
refuges' nine employees this year.
"We provide protection, we do some basic things, but that's
about it," Mason Neck manager Gregory Weiler said in an interview.
"When people say, 'How are you doing,' I say, 'Well, the lights are
on.'"
The refuges no longer conduct wildlife research or do more
than routine maintenance. Staff members no longer lead bird walks and
have reduced educational outreach with visitors. Beyond staff cuts,
Weiler is coping with a flatline budget that cannot keep pace with
rising energy costs and salary increases. His 2007 budget would not
cover fixed costs and salaries, and put him about $10,000 in the hole.
The Potomac River refuges are among hundreds struggling with staff and spending cuts.
"The refuge system has had to make an unacceptable 'Sophie's
Choice,'" said Jaime Rappaport Clark, vice president of Defenders of
Wildlife and a former FWS chief, during a House panel yesterday. The
heroine of the novel "Sophie's Choice" is forced to choose between two
tragic options.
Clark called FWS an "agency in crisis," with staff cuts across
the system and another 335 positions expected to be cut from the
refuges.
Said Virginia Democratic Rep. James Moran: "It's a damn disgrace."
Struggle to 'survive'
Since 2001, annual funding for refuges has increased by about
$83 million, but the cost of operating and maintaining facilities have
outpaced those increases. FWS says most of that money has gone to
control invasive species, improve border security and meet maintenance
needs — the system has a $1.5 billion maintenance backlog.
So FWS regional offices have been developing plans to reduce
refuge budgets. Those plans would eliminate 275 positions over the next
three years, nearly 20 percent of the total refuge workforce.
Refuge managers are now trying to figure out how to get by with less. Here are some examples:
- The Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, S.C.,
has cut a breeding program for endangered red wolves and reduced
monitoring of the largest sea turtle nesting area north of Florida.
- Invasive cordgrass has taken over parts of the Willapa
National Wildlife Refuge in Washington, and five refuges along the
Columbia River have reduced by 40 percent events aimed at reaching the
public.
- The Desert National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada can no longer afford to repair a washed-out stretch of road.
- The overall FWS plan divides refuges into categories — ranging
from larger, "focus" refuges that would retain all their staffing to
smaller ones that would be left with no employees. FWS says the cuts
improve agency efficiency and still provide basic visitor services and
refuge upkeep.
FWS Director Dale Hall said the cuts represent an effort to "survive" while "dealing with tough times."
The Bush administration's fiscal 2008 budget request includes
$394 million for refuge operations and maintenance — $12 million more
than in 2006. Interior Department staff have said they need another $60
million to stave off staff cuts, but they have had to pare down their
request to fit within the overall administration's budget.
Advocates for the refuges are pleading with Congress to boost
budgets. Representatives from seven different refuge support groups
told House appropriators yesterday about refuges that were closed to
the public, left without management or facing theft and vandalism with
no law enforcement officer. And last month, a group of 30 senators and
80 House members signed onto letters asking their colleagues to add $70
million for refuges.
But appropriators say the overall federal budget deficit and
other spending needs leave little room to maneuver. "There are a lot of
pressures," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the
Interior Appropriations Subcommittee.
'That stuff is gone'
At Mason Neck, Weiler is not optimistic about getting relief.
"Budgets have gotten to a critical point where even increases in
significant amounts will still require a fair amount of time to recover
from," Weiler said. "It is easy to cut something out, but harder to add
back in."
Weiler's three refuges are along Virginia's Occoquan Bay,
where the Occoquan River meets the Potomac. The Mason Neck refuge is on
the east side of the bay, part of a peninsula that includes a state
park, the home of George Mason and a Bureau of Land Management
recreation area.
The two other refuges that are managed as part of the complex
are the western side of the bay. Featherstone National Wildlife Refuge,
which has no public access, provides a narrow buffer between the water
and a commuter rail line. Just above it lies the Occoquan refuge, a
former military property.
On the surface, the three refuges are not crumbling. Their
marshes and woodlands still provide habitat for eagles, herons and
hundreds of other bird species. But Weiler said problems lie "more in
what you don't see."
With the layoff of their sole wildlife biologist, the refuges
do not conduct surveys of great blue herons, eagles, grasslands birds,
invasive plants, frogs and deer. Nor do they do any habitat monitoring.
Students from universities and high schools used to do research at the
refuges, but no one is available to coordinate or permit those
activities.
"The herons are out there, and barring a hurricane, they'll
probably stay out there. But we can't count them," Weiler said. "All
that stuff is just gone."
The refuge has moved to what Weiler calls passive management.
That means the forest is left to do what it will, rather than having
staff to trim certain trees and let others grow to improve eagle
habitat. It also means making a best guess on grasslands management for
migratory birds, mowing it once a year, rather than basing such efforts
on research.
Meanwhile, mile-a-minute weed is invading part of the largest
heron rookery in the mid-Atlantic. Weiler plans to get staff out to
spray herbicide on the weeds, but the refuge has cut its comprehensive
invasive species management program.
Minimal visitor services, crime
The refuges' woes surprised Joan Patterson, a leader of a
volunteer group, Friends of the Potomac Refuges. When she moved to
Virginia from Oregon several years ago, she expected to find a "Taj
Mahal" visitor center because the refuges are so close to Washington,
D.C., but there are minimal facilities for visitors and no visitor
center.
"What kills me is there is so much potential here," Patterson said.
The Potomac complex's staff works in a strip-mall office on
U.S. Highway 1, more than a mile from the nearest refuge. Refuge
volunteers started a campaign three years ago to build an office and
visitor center, but the group has given up the effort in a struggle to
help keep the refuge gates open.
"As the budget gets worse and worse, we're just trying to get
attention and funding to keep above water," said Annette Baker-Toole of
the volunteer group.
The three refuges have about 40,000 visitors a year, but that
number is expected to grow when a new Virginia science museum opens
next to the Occoquan refuge in 2010. The $120 million museum is
expected to draw 500,000 visitors per year.
The Potomac refuges also deal with crime. Illegal immigrants
built makeshift houses several years in the Featherstone refuge, and
there has been reports of prostitution in refuge parking lots.
While the Potomac refuges lost one-third of their staff last
year, they did gain a law enforcement officer, who was transferred
there when the position was cut at another refuge.
But since the position was a transfer and not new, the refuge
was not given money for equipment to support the officer, so officer
Gareth Williams bartered with other refuges to get a vehicle, radios
and a safe to store his gun and evidence. But he's still on the lookout
for portable breath testers, a holster and waders.
Meanwhile, refuge manager Weiler is searching for more budget
cuts — to make up a $10,000 shortfall. On the chopping block: staff
training trips, local travel to save fuel and his office's extra phone
lines.
One way the refuges can deal with budget woes is to adopt the National Park Service's strategy, Williams quipped.
"What does the Park Service do when they run into money issues
— which we all laugh at given their level compared to us? They propose
to shut down some major park," Williams said. "For some reason, I just
don't see us looking at the same concept."
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