NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT


To:         All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:       Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:   Tuesday, December 5, 2000

ALMANAC

On this date in 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune became president of the 
National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1949.  Mary 
McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site in Washington, 
D.C., commemorates her life and work.

INCIDENTS

00-728 - Buffalo NR (AR) - Search

D. "M." T., 41, of Lancaster, Texas, was reported lost in 
the Point Peter area around 9 p.m. on Saturday, November 25th. D.T. 
had been deer hunting with his 17-year-old son, who last saw him at 11 
a.m. when his father took a different trail to a nearby road. Rangers, 
Searcy County deputies, Arkansas Game and Fish employees and local 
residents began a search for him that night. They were later assisted 
by an Explorer SAR team and two dog teams. The dog teams and searchers 
were following D.T.'s trail early on the morning of the 26th when he 
appeared at a house located three miles from the point where he'd last 
been seen. He was cold and wet but uninjured. A total of 25 people 
were involved in the search. [Carl Hinrichs, BUFF, 11/27]

00-729 - Virgin Islands NP (VI) - Marijuana Eradication

On the morning of November 21st, rangers eradicated 1,071 marijuana 
plants from the L'Esperance area on St. John. Members of a Virgin 
Islands drug task force assisted in the operation. The field was found 
in a heavily wooded area of the park. The growers had set up a 
campsite and used water from a nearby stream to irrigate their crop. 
The tent and tools were confiscated and several water containers were 
destroyed. No one was arrested, but suspects have been identified in 
the local community. [Schuler Brown, CR, VIIS, 11/22]

00-730 - Santa Monica Mountains NRA (CA) - Weapons Violation

On Wednesday, November 29th, a BLM employee advised rangers that he'd 
heard multiple gunshots fired in the vicinity of the Circle X Ranch, 
one of the park's developed areas. Three rangers investigated and 
contacted four people in that area. M.A., 21, was searched 
and found to be in possession of a Ruger 9mm pistol. His companions 
were all juveniles and relatives. The weapons and two ammunition 
magazines were confiscated, and 14 expended cartridges were found at 
the scene. M.A. told the rangers that he was only shooting into the 
air. He was issues two mandatory appearance citations - one for 
discharging a weapon, the other for possession of a weapon in the 
park. [Jon Dick, CR, SAMO, 12/4]

FIRE MANAGEMENT

National Fire Plan

No new information. Please check the NPS Fire Management Program 
Center web page (www.fire.nps.gov) for further information on fire 
plan projects.

Park Fires

No fires reported.

CULTURAL/NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

No submissions.

INTERPRETATION AND VISITOR SERVICES

No submissions.

OPERATIONAL NOTES

Senior Ranger Corps - The United Parcel Service Foundation has granted 
$500,000 to the National Park Foundation to provide seed funding to 
support the NPS's new Senior Ranger Corps program.  The National Park 
Foundation, the National Park Service, and the Environmental Alliance 
for Senior Involvement are partners in this program. It is designed to 
help parks recruit and retain senior and youth volunteers, and enhance 
relationships with local communities.  The program's ultimate goals 
are to create opportunities for people to develop and express 
stewardship for national park resources through volunteerism and to 
have positive effects on local communities. The National Park 
Foundation has put out a request for proposals (RFP) that is available 
on the internet at www.nationalparks.org/npf/programs-initiatives or 
on EASI's website at www.easi.org. Copies of the RFP's can also be 
obtained from regional VIP coordinators. Proposals must be postmarked 
no later than December 22nd.  Proposals received with a postmark later 
than that date will not be considered.  Do not fax or email proposals. 
 Mail them to National Park Foundation, 1101 17th Street, NW, Suite 
1102, Washington, D.C. 20036.  Attn:  Stephanie Pittard. [Corky Mayo, 
I&ED/WASO]

Resource Protection Act Court Ruling - In the early pre-dawn hours of 
November 6, 1996, the German owned 464-foot-long chemical tanker Igloo 
Moon ran hard aground on a coral reef within Biscayne National Park. 
Although the grounding ruptured four of its oil and diesel-fuel tanks, 
none of the over 100,000 gallons of oil and fuel was released into the 
environment due to the protection of the ships' double-bottom design 
and the quick response by the U.S. Coast Guard and the ship's owner. 
Although the fuel and oil was successfully removed from the vessel 
without spilling into Biscayne Bay, the bigger problem was with the 
product it was carrying - 6,600 metric tons of butadiene, one of the 
most dangerous industrial chemicals used today.  For the next fifteen 
days, the park staff and all those involved in the operation held 
their collective breaths until the ship was finally floated off the 
reef and towed safely out to sea on November 21, 1996.  The incident 
set off a major marine salvage operation that today is taught to all 
emergency marine response teams around the world.  The incident also 
provided one of the first large tests of the Park System Resources 
Protection Act (16 USC 19jj), a new federal law that allows the 
National Park Service to collect damages and agency response costs 
caused by such incidents. The Environmental Response, Planning and 
Assessment Unit of the Environmental Quality Division in WASO worked 
closely with the park on both the emergency response actions and the 
assessment of damages.  Not long after removal of the vessel, the 
Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on behalf of the National Park 
Service under the act. The complaint stipulated that the ship owner is 
liable for response costs and damages for the destruction, loss of, or 
injuries to park system resources caused by the grounding.  On October 
18th, a settlement of this suit was reached with the ship owners and 
accepted by the federal district court in Miami. Under the settlement, 
the ship owners agreed to pay the Service $1,000,000.  The money will 
be used to restore the damaged coral reef, compensate for the loss of 
the resource while the reef is recovering, and reimburse the Service 
for its expenditures related to the incident. The money will be 
deposited in a park specific account in the DOI Restoration Fund where 
it will be held until the park requests it.  While in the DOI Fund, 
the money will be invested and the earned interest will stay with the 
account.  Restoration actions currently being considered and planned 
by the park, include primary restoration at the grounding site where 
reef structure and vertical relief will be replaced to allow for the 
natural recruitment of hard and soft corals back onto the site.  The 
park will use the compensatory money to restore other coral reef 
damage scattered throughout the park where they don't have a 
responsible party identified or where damages occurred prior to the 
passage of the park system act.  It is estimated that the park may be 
able to address as many as 20 to 30 of these sites a year over a 
period of seven to ten years.  Monitoring of the restoration will also 
take place over several years to determine whether the restoration 
actions are succeeding and whether additional effort has to be taken 
to restore these kinds of resources. [Jake Hoogland, EQD/WASO]

MEMORANDA

No submissions.

INTERCHANGE

No submissions.

PARKS AND PEOPLE

Haleakala NP (HI) - The park is looking for a GS-7/9 law enforcement 
ranger for a temporary detail assignment in the Summit District for a 
minimum of two months. The person selected will be working with 
commercial operations, LE and EMS on top of a volcano at 10,000 feet; 
shifts will cover varying periods from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. Employee 
salary, travel, housing, and per diem will be covered by Haleakala.  
The parks is also advertising this as a permanent position through 
USAJobs.  For more information, contact the Summit District DR Greg 
Moss via cc:Mail or at 808-572-4431. [Greg Moss, HALE]

George Washington Carver NM  (MO) - The Freeman Tilden Award, an 
annual award recognizing outstanding contributions through 
interpretation by an NPS employee, was presented to supervisory park 
ranger Lana Henry in a ceremony at the National Association for 
Interpretation workshop in Tucson early last month. She was recognized 
for creation of the George Washington Carver Discovery Center. [Corky 
Mayo, I&ED/WASO]

George Wright Society - The winners of the society's annual awards 
have been selected for this year:

o       George Melendez Wright Award for Excellence - Retired NPS 
        chief scientists Bob Linn and Ted Sudia, for co-founding GWS 
        in 1980 and their efforts on behalf of science-based resource 
        management throughout their careers.
o       GWS Cultural Resource Management Award - Ann Hitchcock, chief 
        of the Service's museum management program, for her leadership 
        in building and strengthening the Servicewide museum program.
o       GWS Natural Resource Management Award - Vince Santucci, Fossil 
        Butte NM, for his efforts on behalf of paleontological 
        resources in various parks.
o       GWS Communication Award - Stephanie DuBois, Glen Canyon NRA, 
        for her innovative educational work there and at Rainbow 
        Bridge NM.
o       Special Achievement Award - George Minnucci, retired president 
        of Eastern National, for his efforts on behalf of GWS and the 
        parks in general over his long career.

The awards will be presented at the GWS conference in Denver next 
April. [Dave Harmon, GWS]

                            *  *  *  *  *

Distribution of the Morning Report is through a mailing list managed 
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address requests pertaining to receipt of the Morning Report to your 
servicing hub coordinator.  The Morning Report is also available on 
the web at http://www.nps.gov/morningreport

Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the 
cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

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