The National Park Service and a Bar Harbor volunteer group have signed an agreement to keep Acadia National Park plowed and its ski trails groomed through the partial federal government shutdown.
David MacDonald, president of the Friends of Acadia, says while the park remains open, most of its staff has been furloughed.
“It puts them in a real bind. Friends of Acadia has no interest or ability, really, to fill the important role that park staff can play. But we do have some long-running, well-established volunteer programs,” he says.
That includes a couple dozen volunteers, MacDonald says, who run snowmobiles to groom the park’s expansive network of carriage trails. With snow in the forecast, MacDonald says the park service’s remaining Acadia skeleton crew will plow a single lane on Ocean Drive plus a few parking areas.
While that may ease traditional wintertime uses through the season, MacDonald warns that if the shutdown continues much longer, more serious challenges will emerge.
“Because it takes awhile to hire the seasonal employees and the crews and employees that really run the park in the summer. The park is usually hiring and going through clearances for those people right now. For that to get backed up will likely rear its head come April or May,” he says.
Most of Acadia’s 80-plus year-round employees have been furloughed, with only a handful of law enforcement staff remaining on site, without pay.