Park News September 12,2008

United States Park Police

This year’s 9/11 ceremonies marked the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. A special ceremony was held at the Pentagon to dedicate a memorial in honor of the 184 people killed in the building and on American Airlines Flight 77.  President Bush was in attendance along with numerous heads of agencies, including the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Acting Assistant Chief Sal Lauro represented the United States Park Police.  There were 20,000 invited guests to the event. A moment of silence was observed at 9:37 a.m., the moment Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. The names of those who perished were then read. 

Security was a major issue for the event and the US Park Police provided considerable support to the US Secret Service and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency.  A unified command was established with Major Jonathan Pierce as the incident commander for the US Park Police. 

Prior to his arrival at the Pentagon, President Bush joined 8,000 invited guests on the White House’s South Lawn, including members of Congress, for a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the moment American Airline Flight 11 struck the north tower of the World Trade Center. US Park Police units secured the Ellipse and other surrounding NPS areas during this event. 

US Park Police motor units, working in conjunction with allied agencies, escorted the President to and from the Pentagon.  Patrol units assisted with road closures and focused patrols on the escort route and on the George Washington Memorial Parkway near the Pentagon. Overhead, ‘Eagle,’ the US Park Police helicopter, kept watch from above.  Tactical, intelligence, and plainclothes units worked behind the scenes to provide another layer of security. 

The memorial consists of individual memorials dedicated to each of the 184 victims.  The Pentagon Memorial opened to the general public on September 11th at 7:00 p.m.  For more information about the memorial, please visit the official website at www.pentagonmemorial.net.

 

Southeast/Intermountain Regions

Preparations are in full swing for Hurricane Ike, both in potentially affected parks and at the national level. The Central incident management team will be deployed to Texas at the request of Padre Island NS. The Service has been tasked with its fourth FEMA search and rescue mission assignment this year and is staging 21 two-person boat crews with an urban search and rescue task force in Houston. The NPS has also updated a law enforcement roster in case there’s a need to provide personnel for safety and security missions. Meanwhile, the following reports have been received from parks along Ike’s route:

Everglades NP/Dry Tortugas NP – All areas of Everglades NP reopened for visitation on Thursday morning. Dry Tortugas continued to feel the impacts of Ike yesterday and remains closed. Four employees remained sheltered at Fort Jefferson, and the rest were en route to the park from Orlando. The M/V Fort Jefferson was set to return to the park yesterday.

Gulf Islands NS – The Florida District is experiencing significant coastal impacts from Ike. Since Wednesday, numerous overwashes and breaches have occurred due to storm surge and the action of waves over 10-feet high in the Santa Rosa, Fort Pickens, Perdido Key, and possibly Okaloosa units. Conditions are not known on the Mississippi District islands. The National Hurricane Center has issued a tropical storm warning for the Mississippi coast. Coastal flooding and shore erosion are expected to continue through at least today. The park is back under ICS and the following closures are in effect or planned:

• The Mississippi District is being upgraded to Hurricane Operational Preparedness Level 5 , or OPL-5, which mandates full district closure and employee release.


• The Florida District is at OPL-3 (partial district closure).


• The Santa Rosa, Fort Pickens, and Okaloosa Units in Florida are closed.


• The Perdido Key Unit is closed east of Johnson Beach. The remainder of the unit was to be closed at sunset yesterday unless conditions warranted an earlier closure. An evaluation will be made this morning to determine whether the Johnson Beach section will reopen.


• The Davis Bayou Unit and the islands in Mississippi closed at 4 p.m. yesterday and district employees were released at that time. The status of these closures will be reevaluated today pending the anticipated lifting of the tropical storm warning.

Jean Lafitte NHP&P – The park has activated its hurricane action plan for the second time this month. The area began feeling the affects of Hurricane Ike on Thursday, with outer bands coming onshore with high winds and heavy rain. Park units in Lafayette and Thibodaux will be closed on Friday and Saturday; the park site in Eunice has been closed since Hurricane Gustav passed and remains closed. Employees in those sites were released from duty at close of business yesterday. The Jefferson Parish emergency operations center yesterday ordered evacuations of lower portions of that parish. This order directly affects the Barataria Unit, so unit will be closed on Friday. It will reopen on Saturday, weather permitting. As of the time of the report (Thursday afternoon), plans were to keep park headquarters, the French Quarter Visitor Center, Chalmette Battlefield, and New Orleans Jazz NHP open. Two teams of sawyers who are in the park cleaning up after Hurricane Gustav have suspended operations until the severe weather passes. They will remain in the area and plan to finish up their 14-day detail to the park.  

 

Yellowstone National Park

On June 17th, the park’s communications center received a 911 call from a person in Gardiner, Montana, reporting a possibly intoxicated man driving a commercial laundry delivery and pickup van. A ‘be on the lookout’ message that was broadcast to Mammoth rangers and Park County deputies was overheard by park employees who’d seen the vehicle and called in its location and direction of travel. About ten minutes later, the park’s deputy chief ranger for operations spotted it behind the Mammoth Clinic and contacted the driver, identified as Robert Webb, 36, of Bozeman, Montana. Webb had the odor of an alcoholic beverage about him and a field investigation showed probable cause to believe that we was operating the truck while under the influence of alcohol. Webb was arrested and charged with two counts of DUI and one count of providing false information. He pled guilty to one count of DUI and  the other charges were dropped pursuant to a plea agreement with the assistant U.S. attorney. Webb was sentenced to 30 days in jail and turned over to a US marshal. Park special agents and rangers investigation the case soon learned that in 2007 Webb had been convicted in Sweet Grass County, Montana, on two felony counts of sexual assault and sentenced to ten years in prison. All but 197 days had been suspended and Webb had been ordered released under the supervision of state probation/parole officers. The probation included a “zero tolerance policy for any illegal drug or alcohol use” – which meant that he’d be subject to being returned to prison if he was caught with alcohol in his possession or system. NPS investigators were able to find facts showing that Webb had consumed up to a pint of vodka per day, regularly drove the laundry vehicle from Bozeman to the park while intoxicated, and was consistently noncompliant with the judge’s probation order. The combination of alcohol and a history of sex offenses made it clear that lack of inhibitions and an inability to control impulses while intoxicated made him a danger to the community. With information provided by the NPS, a state probation/parole officer placed a detainer on Webb. On August 19th, he appeared before a state district judge. The Sweetgrass County attorney presented the revocation case, which was based primarily on the NPS DUI conviction and follow-up investigation and testimony, including statements by the NPS supervisory special agent. The district judge revoked Webb’s probation and returned him to the state prison system to serve the balance of his sentence, a total of eight years and four months. He will not be eligible for probation/parole for about four years.

 

New River Gorge National River

A Fayette County deputy discovered a car parked on the New River Gorge Bridge’s southbound shoulder just after 4 a.m. on September 9th. A suicide note and two sealed, stamped letters addressed to the operator’s parents and fiancé were found inside the car along with a Mapquest map from his home to the bridge. Rangers were summoned and a search was begun along the banks of the New River. The body of the 25-year-old Ohio man was found among the boulders between the CSX railroad tracks and the river around 8 a.m. A joint investigation is being conducted by the county and the park.

 

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

Arnold "Arnie" Miller, former education specialist for Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, passed away on September 4th, surrounded by family and friends. Arnie worked for 31 years as a teacher and counselor with the Los Angeles Unified School District.  He worked as a seasonal ranger for Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Olympic National Park and Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument. Upon retiring from his school positions, he accepted a permanent position at Santa Monica Mountains. Arnie served the NPS for 15 years before retiring again in 2004.

While serving as education specialist at Santa Monica Mountains, he built lasting partnerships with schools, teachers, community groups and other stakeholders to bring children out to the park. His leadership, hard work, dedication and persistence made the park one the NPS’s leading education parks and his efforts helped increase the Service’s credibility with the education community. He will be missed by family, friends and former colleagues.

The memorial service was held on September 8th.  Arnie and his family requested that donations be made to the Santa Monica Mountains Fund or a charity of your choice.  More information about the fund is available at www.samofund.org .

 

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Susan Kopczynski will retire the week of October 1st after 40 years as a historian for the National Park Service.

She has been park historian at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, headquartered in Bushkill, Pennsylvania, for the past 21 years, consulting on the documentation of hundreds of historic structures and the integrity of historic interpretive programs. In 2000, Eastern National published her compilation Exploring Delaware Water Gap History: A Field Guide to the Historic Structures and Cultural Landscapes of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. This 100-page guide is on sale in park bookstores. Sue has also been the author of history articles in the park newsletter, Spanning the Gap, and the National Park Service's CRM (Cultural Resource Management) Magazine.

After graduation from the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York, and intake training to the National Park Service at Albright Training Center in Grand Canyon National Park, she began her career at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia in the years leading up to the Bicentennial. From 1976 to 1986, she worked at Grand Portage National Monument, Edison National Historic Site, Morristown National Historical Park, and Nez Perce National Historical Park. In the 1980s, she also served a temporary detail to Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, and in the 1990s to Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks, drafting the cultural history of the Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon.

The park will hold a "pot-luck" luncheon in Sue's honor on Tuesday, September 30th, at Bushkill Meeting Center on Route 209 in the village of Bushkill. NPS colleagues are also welcome to send in letters of thanks and recognition, which we will include in an album at the luncheon. For further details please contact: Melanie Bond, Delaware Water Gap NRA, HQ - River Rd., Bushkill PA 18324 or (570) 426-2449 (24/7 voicemail) or melanie_bond@nps.gov .

 

Arches National Park

Arches National Park is seeking a qualified individual interested in a lateral reassignment as a permanent, full-time, GS-0025-9 interpretive park ranger.

Arches National Park preserves over two thousand natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch, in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations. In some areas, faulting has exposed millions of years of geologic history. The extraordinary features of the park, including balanced rocks, fins and pinnacles, are highlighted by a striking environment of contrasting colors, landforms and textures. Arches is located just five miles north of Moab, Utah, a town of approximately 9,000 residents located beside the Colorado River in Southeast Utah. Park housing in not available. The climate is typical high desert; semi-arid temperatures range from the ‘teens’ in winter to 100+ in summer. All amenities are available, including doctors, dentists, hospital, schools (K-12 and a branch campus of Utah State University), churches, and shopping. Housing prices are moderate to expensive. The area offers many four-season outdoor activities including superb hiking and camping, white water rafting, mountain biking, 4-wheeling, cross-country skiing, etc. For complete area information visit www.discovermoab.com.

The park is looking for an individual wh

• Has strong field interpretive skills.


• Is motivated, creative, and takes initiative.


• Has strong leadership and team-building skills.


• Can lead and coach a team of permanent, seasonal, and volunteer staff to provide the highest level of visitor services possible.

To apply, please submit the following:

• Resume, OF-12, Optional Application for Federal Employment, or SF-171, Application for Federal Employment – fully describing your interpretation/visitor service experience, training, and accomplishments relevant to the GS-0025 series.


• A current SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, clearly showing your current title, series, grade and step documenting permanent competitive civil service status. You may need to submit more than one SF-50 to show your highest (permanent) grade ever held, if different.


• Copy of your most recent performance appraisal.


• Professional references – these should be provided along with your application package. You should also indicate if it is permissible for the hiring official to contact your present employer. Note: You would be contacted first, if it is necessary to contact your present employer before firm job offer can be made.


• OF-306, Declaration for Federal Employment; click on http://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/of0306.pdf


• DI-1935, Applicant Background Survey (optional); click on http://www.doi.gov/diversity/di1935.pdf

Application should be received in the park personnel office by Friday, September 26th. Mail them to National Park Service, Southeast Utah Group, Attn: Brenda Tupek, 2282 S. West Resource Boulevard, Moab, UT 84532. They can also be faxed to 435-719-2303, but note that the general park fax machine is limited in receiving large quantities of pages; your application may not be received at all, or the pages may be illegible. You will not be contacted to verify the condition of your faxed application, or if the application has been received. The recommended method to ensure your application is received in complete form is to send via the US Postal Service, UPS, or FedEx with tracking or delivery confirmation. We do not accept application materials sent via email.

For further information, please contact Brenda Tupek, human resource specialist, at 435-719-2117.