THE DAILY FED
Public-Private Parks
The Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, "a unique public-private partnership," opened yesterday amid hopes that it will become a new model for the national park system (Jayson Blair, Boston Globe, 6/30).
The management plan for the 31-island chain, which contains the nation's oldest lighthouse, divides responsibility between the city of Boston, local nonprofit groups and the state of Massachusetts. For the first time, the National Park Service will provide a percentage of operating funds for land it doesn't own. The state owns 13 of the islands, while Boston and private groups own the other 18.
Park experts predict that the number of such partnerships will grow. "Many see it as the answer to the national parks' problems in an era of shrinking budgets" (Noel Christian Paul, Christian Science Monitor, 6/30).
Since colonial times, the islands have played a role in the Revolutionary War, held quarantined Irish immigrants, provided prison space for Confederate soldiers and were the site of garbage and sewage dumps (Blair, Boston Globe).
Environmentalists, meanwhile, are objecting to Boston's plans to site a police shooting range on one island, saying it is incompatible with the area's intended recreational purpose. But MA Environmental Affairs Secretary Trudy Coxe is expected today to approve an environmental impact statement that will allow the city to proceed (Charles Radin, Boston Globe, 6/27).
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