Columnist Susan Snyder: Rangers have too much range

Friday, July 2, 2004 | 8:30 a.m.

If a dork cuts down a tree in a national conservation area, send a ranger -- if you can find one.

Visitors are chopping up smoke trees at Lake Mead National Conservation Area and using them for firewood, according to a story published in Tuesday's edition of the Las Vegas Sun.

The drought-resistant trees look dead when it's dry, but that's no excuse. Rocks, dead trees and even the dirt is supposed to stay put in federal recreation areas and parks.

But with 39 rangers to patrol 1.8 million acres of land, the moron-to-officer ratio doesn't exactly favor law enforcement.

About 8 million people are expected to visit Lake Mead this year. It's fewer than the nine to 10 million of past years but enough to make Lake Mead the fifth most-visited of the park service's 388 sites.

And enough to make it the fourth most-crime ridden, according to a 2003 report issued by the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. The group ranked Lake Mead fifth in 2002. The 2004 report isn't out yet.

Roxanne Dey, Lake Mead spokeswoman, said the rating is unfair. The area sees thousands -- even millions -- more visitors than many other national sites. Of course there are more crimes. But she concedes it is a challenge.

"The rangers here have huge areas to patrol," Dey said, describing a typical ranger day last summer.

"They worked a 12-hour shift in the sun all day, then went to a fire that night. And the faces there were the same faces of the ones who had to be back out early the next morning," Dey said.

Five of the 39 rangers are seasonal, Dey said. One Lake Mead ranger cited a U.S. Interior Department audit when he told ABC News last year that Lake Mead had lost 16 ranger positions since 1998.

It's a local snapshot in a dark national park portrait. Interior Department budget cuts have resulted in fewer rangers throughout the system -- from 1,841 permanent and 616 seasonals in 1980 to 1,539 permanent and 469 seasonals last year, a National Park Service law enforcement reform report says.

Meanwhile, the service has added 7.3 million acres to its system and now sees 424 million visitors annually -- up from 300 million in 1980.

Lake Mead's rangers respond to drownings, fires and answer search-and-rescue calls. They also mend boundary fences, post signs and try to protect cultural and natural sites. A 2001 Department of Interior report says at Meadview, "the only protection ranger living there is partly responsible for everything, from interpretation to maintenance to search and rescue."

So many of these tree-chopping louts likely will get away with it. One culprit "actually drove past three signs that say you're in a national park," Dey said.

It's tragic that the nation's fifth most-popular playground is treated as trash rather than treasure, from the people who use it right on up to those who decide how much money it gets -- to send a ranger.