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1998
January 9 1998 The NPS proposes expanding the borders of Oregon Caves National Monument by as much as 8 times to 3,310 acres that is the size first proposed in 1908. Much of the area surrounding the park has been extensively logged. The present park is 484 acres. The proposal also suggests that the NPS take over the cave tours and the ownership of the Chalet, turning it into a visitor center and employee housing. Oregon Caves is completing a success three-year, $1.3 million cave restoration project.
February 10 1998 Calling fishing a “violent process” inharmonious with Crater Lake, the group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in a letter to Park Superintendent Al Hendricks, asks that fishing with the boundaries of the Park be banned. PETA claims that the last thing they want to see while on vacation is someone killing or torturing an animal in the Park. “These fish have lives and should be left along.” “They’re very sincere people with strong beliefs.” Hendricks responded. “They have the right to promote their beliefs. I’ll wait and see if it develops into anything, but I’d be surprised if it did.”
April 15 1998 Mr. Smith’s class Jacksonville Elementary School , Jacksonville, Oregon 97530
Dear Mr. Smith’s fifth-grade class: On behalf of the staff at Crater Lake National Park, I would like to express our appreciation for your donation to the park. The money raised by your class will be used to purchase a new pair of Atlas snowshoes. This additional pair will provide us with the ability to work with larger school groups in the future. I am sure students from your school and others will be grateful for your help in allowing them to participate in the snowshoe walk program.
We are glad your class was able to visit the park this winter. We hope you will have a chance to return for another visit soon.
Sincerely, Al Hendricks – Superintendent
U.S. Office of Special Counsel
Washington, D.C.
May 12, 1999
| U.S. Office of Special Counsel
For Immediate Release – 5/12/99 Contact: Jane McFarland (202) 653-7984 |
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) today announced the favorable settlement of two complaints filed with it by Mr. Stephen Robinson and his wife, Amelia Bruno, longtime seasonal employees of the National Park Service (NPS), against NPS. Mr. Robinson made protected disclosures concerning tour boat safety at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Mr. Robinson complained to OSC that the NPS had violated the Whistleblower Protection Act when it failed to rehire him for seasonal summer work at Crater Lake. His wife complained that she had also been denied employment as a direct result of her husband’s disclosures.
Under the terms of the settlement, Mr. Robinson and Ms. Bruno will receive full corrective action, including backpay, and the NPS will suspend their former supervisor for thirty days. Prior to the settlement, during OSC’s investigation into their allegations, the NPS reassigned their former supervisor, the Park Superintendent, out of Crater Lake Park.
Beginning in the summer of 1992 and continuing through the summer of 1996, Mr. Robinson and Ms. Bruno held seasonal appointments at Crater Lake, Oregon. In the summer of 1996, Mr. Robinson made protected disclosures when he notified park officials and his Senator about safety issues associated with Crater Lake’s tour boat operation. Mr. Robinson’s concerns included insufficient training and lack of certification for boat operators, lack of safety equipment, unreliability of boat engines and improper operation of boats in inclement weather. When Mr. Robinson and Ms. Bruno attempted to return to Crater Lake for the 1997 season, they were unable to obtain employment at the park. They were again denied employment at Crater Lake for the 1998 season.
Mr. Robinson and Ms. Bruno first contacted OSC in April 1997, alleging that because of Mr. Robinson’s protected whistleblower disclosures, Crater Lake Park officials blacklisted them and denied them employment and housing for the 1997 season. When OSC’s investigation revealed strong evidence that Mr. Robinson and Ms. Bruno were denied employment in retaliation for Mr. Robinson’s disclosures concerning the safety of the tourist boats, the NPS fully cooperated with OSC in obtaining corrective relief for them and the disciplinary action against their former supervisor.
Special Counsel Elaine Kaplan said that she was pleased by both the corrective and disciplinary remedies agreed to by the Park Service. “The Park Service’s decision,” she said, “should send a clear message to its employees that there’s a price to be paid for retaliating against whistleblowers.” Kaplan said that “the offending supervisor not only got transferred out of the park, but he will also serve a suspension without pay.” Kaplan said she appreciated “the cooperation of the Park Service in resolving this matter based upon OSC’s investigative findings.”
May 31 1998 Death of Richard McPike Brown. Few people have touched the lives of so many employees and visitors while working at CLNP as Richard Brown. He had his greatest impact in the areas of interpretation and research from 1952 to 1970, but also made lasting contributions toward building the contents of the Park’s library. At one time Dick’s personal book collection exceeded that of the Park’s.
June 18 1998 North Entrance opens for the season. Crews had to cut through some drifts measuring over 50 feet in height
July 1998 Ranger James Griffin flips his patrol vehicle on the road between North Junction and the Pumice Desert. He was heading to the scene of an accident.
July 1 1998 Record of Decision for the Environmental Impact Statement Visitor Services Plan completed. Alternate A will be implemented. Four alternates were considered. “A” was selected.
The Park Service felt that this choice would provide the best balance between resource protection and visitor experience, and the appropriate mix of Park Service interpretive and commercial services.
Whole summer 1998 Cleetwood Lake Trail closed and boat tours shut down for the summer so that a new and more permanent gas line can be installed down the foot tread of the Lake Trail. Cement squares and manhole covers, marking the path of the line, are now visible in the foot tread.
MT – April 15, 1998 Work will close Crater Lake trail
Visitors won’t be able to visit the water this summer because installation of a new fuel line will block the only trail.
Crater Lake National Park is shutting down the trail while it installs the new gasoline line for tour boats. Park supervisors say the threat of pollution to the crystal-clear lake water made this repair necessary. Continuing to use the 30-year-old fuel storage tank on the rim of Crater Lake and the exposed gasoline pipeline to the boat dock at Cleetwood Cove presents an unacceptable risk.
Twenty-five thousand people a year ride the four 60-passenger boats that carry people from Cleetwood Cove to Wizard Island and offer a close-up look at Phantom Ship island and other volcanic features.
“I feel very sorry for visitors to the park this summer that there will not be a regular boat schedule going on,” “A lot of people travel from thousands of miles away. This may be their only trip ever to Crater Lake. They won’t have an opportunity to experience Crater Lake from down on the water.”
Once work begins, it is estimated to take two to four weeks to replace the 2,000-gallon storage tank and bury the pipeline along the trail.
The cost is estimated at $350,000 and will be paid by the Park Service. While the pipeline is being buried, the 1.1-mile trail to Cleetwood Cove will be closed to the public.
The 2,000-gallon storage tank must be replaced to meet the December deadline for new Environmental Protection Agency standards.
August 9 1998 Crater Lake officials have plan to improve the park’s ambience BY BILL KETTLER
Visitors come to Crater Lake looking for something spectacular, but the first thing they see is a parking lot.
The managers of Oregon’s only national park want visitors to get a better first impression of Crater Lake. And they think a plan to tear out a big parking lot and rehabilitate several of the park’s oldest buildings will give people something to rave about.
“You really should have a sense of arrival when you see the lake,” “And you don’t have it now. “You walk out there now to see Crater Lake and you have to dodge cars.”
If Congress approves money to implement the park’s new visitor services plan, the scene at the rim of Crater Lake will change dramatically. The $15 million plan, approved by the National Park Service in July, will allow visitors to view Crater Lake in a more natural setting. Under the plan, the large parking lot between the cafeteria and the lake will be moved behind the cafeteria. Miele said the newly vacant land will be landscaped with pedestrian paths and native plants to create a “leisurely pedestrian environment” for visitors to approach the lake.
The cafeteria will be restored to look the way it did when it was built in 1928. Three additions to the building will be razed, leaving a steep-roofed, wood-and-stone structure about one-fourth the size of the existing cafeteria. There will be a small, modern deli and gift shop in the cafeteria, but most food service and gift shop operations will be moved to Mazama Village, seven miles below the rim. The park’s concessionaire will build a new restaurant and gift shop there.
The Kiser studio now serves as a visitor center at the rim, but Miele said it is too small to provide the displays to help visitors understand how the lake was formed. The historic district also will include a nearby wood-framed, two-story building known as the Community House, which was used for visitor programs in the 1920s.
A new three-story visitor center will be built near the rim, with a third-floor observation deck.
“You could walk out and get the panoramic view of Crater Lake,” said Miele. “And in the wintertime, you’d look across a broad expanse of sparkling white snow that would be the backdrop for Crater Lake.”
It replaces a 1980s vision for the Rim Village area that featured a multistory hotel and a subterranean parking garage.
The previous plan would have cost as much as $60 million to $70 million to implement. Whoever wins the park’s new 15-year concession contract will be required to spend as much as $5 million on improvements for visitor services such as the new restaurant.
While there’s no assurance that Congress will fund the project, Hendricks said. “The likelihood of success on a $15 million project is considerably greater than the previous $70 million project.”
Hendricks said the new vision for Rim Village started to emerge around 1995, when the restored Crater Lake Lodge reopened. Park managers realized they would be renegotiating the park’s concession contracts in 1997, and they began thinking about ways they could enhance visitors’ view of the lake, the park’s prime resource.
Park historian Steve Mark said the National Park Service had a building boom in the 1920s, when the easy affordability of private cars brought the first flood of visitors to national parks. The style, which builders used throughout the 1920s and ’30s, also can be seen in buildings at Mount Lassen and Mount Rainier national parks.
At Crater Lake, later examples of the style can be seen in the park administration buildings, which are situated in a group of buildings just before the road begins its final climb to the rim. Mark said the buildings reflect “a happy intersection of funding, skilled labor and good design.”
Park managers would like to make the changes quickly, but they have to wait on money from Congress, and funding moves slowly. Funding decisions for the federal 1999 budget year that begins in October already have been made. The project will have to compete with other National Park Service funding requests, and projects sometimes wait a year or more to gain approval.
“There’s always a delay of a couple of years,” said park superintendent Hendricks. “Even if we put in a (request) today, it would be 2000 or 2001 before we could get it into the system.
“The best we can hope for is some consideration for (funding) in 2001. And it may not make it the first year it’s eligible.”
August 11 1998 A park visitor dies after he strayed too far from shore and slipped into deep water. Tristan N. Craibill, age 23, and Shawn K. Cook, age 23, both from Winchester, Virginia, had climbed down the caldera wall from the Watchman Overlook. Both were swimming in Skell Channel about 20 feet from shore. Crabill was wearing heavy hiking boots, while wading that made it even more difficult to swim in the cold lake. Cook attempted to save Crabill, but was unsuccessful. Cook located Crabill on the bottom in 7 – 10 feet of water and was able, with difficulty, to drag him to shore where she began CPR and shouted for help. After a considerable period of time, perhaps an hour, hikers at the rim heard her cries and reported the incident to the Rim Visitor Center. National Park Rangers received the call around 2:00 p.m. Park Rangers on the lake research vessel were first to reach the scene at 2:20 p.m. and continued CPR. Two other park rangers rappelled over the caldera wall down to the accident scene. A helicopter ambulance from Mercy Flights arrived at 3:05 p.m. The victim was airlifted out of the caldera.
September 16 1998 2,000 bike riders from the 10th annual Cycle Oregon, sponsored by the Oregonian Newspaper, leave their overnight camp at Diamond Lake to circle the Rim of Crater Lake. The group started on September 13 in Myrtle Creek, with camping stops in Butte Falls, Diamond Lake, Glide, and returning to Myrtle Creek on September 19th.
September 26 1998 Crater Lake explosives found By JIM DAVIS
A contractor found 50 blasting caps just off Cleetwood Cove Trail. The explosives may have been there for more than 40 years. Thousands of people walked by there yearly.
Contractors have been installing a new gasoline line this summer along the trail that leads 800 feet down from the rim of the caldera to the water’s edge.
On Wednesday, a worker found a blasting cap within 100 feet of the water, picked it up and then put it down after realizing what it was.
The contractor called national park rangers, who called in the Oregon State Police bomb squad.
Poking around, the police and contractors found a box of 50 Atlas electric blasting caps behind a tree. OSP bomb squad members reported that the caps were badly deteriorated and destroyed them.
Bomb squad members speculated that the caps were left from a job that was done in 1957 when the trail was constructed.
Buckingham said he didn’t know when the caps were left at the site. Contractors haven’t used blasting caps at the park for at least nine years, he said.
Editor’s note: In 1961 our trail crew dug several “fox holes” back into the hillsides above the boat dock. The banks were then dynamited to gain rock fill for the new dock. Much of the fill material that we blasted out washed away that winter. Pumice floats. Just the large rocks were left behind. There is a good chance that these blasting caps were left over from that job. The tall banks have been unstable ever since the blasting. (from Larry Smith)
September 26 1998 Glen Happle, Crater Lake Lodge Manager for 27 years dies in Salem, Oregon. Age 83.
Winter 1998 – 1999 The access road to Rim Village was closed for a total of 70 days because of drifting snow, winds, and equipment failures.
December 18 1998 Lawyers at Lane Powell Spears Lubersky are trying to prevent the National Park Service from requiring the retrieval of a helicopter that crashed into Crater Lake nearly three years ago.
Albert Hendricks, former superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, requested that American Eurocopter Corp. locate the wreckage, assess its potential harm to the lake and determine the feasibility of its removal.
Don Pyle, a Lane Powell environmental attorney retained by the helicopter company, said the retrieval assessment has been done, and their consultants have concluded that removal would be harmful to the unique lake environment, too treacherous and too costly, with a price tag of nearly $1 million.
The $1 million the government may ask the helicopter company to pay for recovery could prove to be just a fraction of what the fatal crash may cost Eurocopter. Recently a jury awarded the family of one of the two victims $29 million in a wrongful death suit.
The bodies of Edward Tulleners Jr., a West Linn businessman, and the pilot, George Causey of Enumclaw, Wash., who died in the crash, have never been recovered.
The idea of extracting the wreckage by means of manned submersible vehicles poses safety concerns at these depths, and potentially could introduce foreign organisms into the lake, Pyle said. The lake also is perched at about 7,000 feet, making it difficult for aircraft to fly in the necessary equipment.
Tulleners’ family, which received a $29 million judgment from American Eurocopter, also has requested that his remains stay in the lake.
“It is the family’s’ hope that the body of Ed Tulleners remain undisturbed,” said Timothy Jones, an attorney with Huegli & Jones.
Winter 1998/1999 Total snowfall measured at 674 inches. Over 100 inches above average. 56 feet.
Fiscal Year 1998 $3,420,000
Visitation 521,465 visitors (Online says: 471,865)
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