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Sacajawea State Park in Pasco is one of 33 properties in the Washington State Parks system being considered for temporary closure for budget purposes.
No decisions have been made, nor have the parks been ranked in likelihood to be closed. But parks were evaluated according to several objective standards, and according to two of those -- annual visitation and revenues generated -- Sacajawea State Park scored fourth poorest.
"This is just a sampling. If we do have to mothball more parks, there's a potential they'd be ones on this list," Virginia Painter, spokeswoman for the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, said of the 33 parks on the list. "But there's also a potential there'll be parks taken off this list for various reasons."
Sacajawea State Park is a 284-acre day-use park at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers.
Temporary closure of the park would mean its interpretive center would be closed, the restrooms would be locked, utilities would be turned off and the gate would be locked. Only minimal staffing would be used to periodically check on the park.
People still could get into the park on foot, but they would do so at their own risk.
The closure would be until the state's finances rebound, and likely would last at least both years of the 2009-11 biennium budget.
The governor already had tasked the parks commission to reduce the state parks system by transferring 13 properties primarily to local jurisdictions as part of an effort to trim $10 million from the parks system's budget. The park transfers -- including three east of the Cascades, but not Sacajawea -- would reduce the budget by about $3.5 million.
But that plan was when the biennium budget deficit was projected to be $5.7 billion.
Since then, the state's deficit estimate has grown to $8.5 billion, and the parks commission has now been asked to describe how it could cut $23 million, including the previously planned cuts. About $10.1 million of the additional cost reduction would have to come from temporary park closures.
The state parks commission received the directive last week and reviewed the list of 33 parks with annual expenditures exceeding $150,000 at its meeting March 5.
Sacajawea State Park's annual expenditures are $210,781, the fourth-lowest of the 33 parks. But it also was the fourth-lowest in annual revenue generated, $16,252, and annual attendance, 63,573.
Sharon Stewart, a volunteer coordinator for Sacajawea State Park who has helped at state parks throughout the state, said it would be a shame to close Sacajawea for any time because it's the only state park for the Tri-Cities.
Annual events there have included the Sacajawea Bluegrass Festival in June, the Heritage Days festival in September, the Haunted Forest in October, Old Time Fiddlers, a pioneer picnic and many weddings.
Some of those events bring people to the Tri-Cities from Idaho, Oregon and California, she said.
The park's interpretive center -- which reopened in June 2007 after a $1.8 million expansion and renovation funded mainly by the state -- also draws visitors, local and otherwise, she said.
About 50 people volunteer there. Stewart feared that even temporary closure of the park would mean permanent loss of some of those volunteers and events.
She suggested people who use the state parks would accept a day-use fee or a parking fee if it kept the parks open.
Painter said attendance, expenditures and revenues wouldn't necessarily determine which parks would be temporarily closed.
"There are so many different ways you can look at this," she said. It may make sense to close a few of the bigger parks that are more expensive to run, or it may make sense to close several of the smaller parks, she said.
"But in some of the smaller places, those economies really depend on those parks," Painter said. "So it is just a no-win."
The next meeting of the parks commission is scheduled April 23 in Olympia. The board includes five commissioners from the west side of the state, and two from the east side -- one from Wenatchee and one from Yakima.
The list of temporary closures will be finalized with the adoption of the state budget in late April.
In the meantime, the parks commission is inviting public comment on the possible temporary closure of parks by e-mailing pao@ parks.wa.gov. For more on state parks budget reductions, visit www.parks.wa.gov/current.asp.
w Joe Chapman: 582-1512; jchapman@tricityherald.com
