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The Interior Department decided Wednesday to close Grand Canyon National Park indefinitely following several days of urgent appeals from federal, county, local and tribal governments, as well as park service employees and public health officials. The park was partially open earlier this week before several employees tested positive for coronavirus.
The delay in deciding to close the park despite escalating risk of infection from the coronavirus was widely criticized and seen as an example of a larger failure of leadership during a crisis through ineffective guidance and communication from Interior Department leadership.
Park service employees across the agency are pushing back against the Trump administration's decision to keep parks open. One park ranger at the Grand Canyon who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, "We feel our boss is not meeting up with our pleas... It’s political, to keep up the image." The employee further described the risk, saying, "I feel people’s idea of the Grand Canyon is that you can isolate, but there’s two entrances. They are all going to the same view stations and same trails. It funnels people to the same spots.”
Grand Canyon joins a growing list of national parks that have decided to close to the public this week, including Joshua Tree National Park in California.
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Standing alone, the administration’s anti-environment, anti-conservation and anti-science agenda is an outrage. Continuing to aggressively prosecute the agenda when our country is consumed by a major health emergency is inexcusable.”
