NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT


To:         All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:       Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:   Wednesday, March 21, 2001

INCIDENTS

01-097 - Delaware Water Gap NRA (NJ/PA] - Illegal Immigrants

Rangers Chris Kross and Mike Fernalld contacted six men sleeping in a 
GMC Suburban with Texas plates at the Kittatinny Point VC on February 
27th. Only one of the six spoke any English. Two had Mexican 
identification cards, one had a Texas ID, and the others had no 
identification at all. Since none of the six had a driver's license 
and the vehicle was found to be uninsured, the Suburban was impounded. 
The six were arrested for immigration law violations and were turned 
over to INS agents from Newark, New Jersey. Illegal immigrants 
frequently travel through the park via I-80 to get to the New York 
city area. [Chris Kross, PR, DEWA, 3/6] 

01-098 - C&O Canal NHP (MD) - Attempted Suicide

On the morning of March 16th, the Park Police received a call from a 
man who reported that his wife was suicidal and on her way to Great 
Falls. Several officers responded and located her unoccupied vehicle 
in the parking lot. Officer Christopher Curtin found her at the 
water's edge near Great Falls Inn. She told him that she was going to 
end her life. Eagle 1, several crisis negotiators, rangers and local 
fire and rescue personnel joined the officers at the scene. Sergeant 
Kathy Harasek, a trained crisis negotiator, worked with Curtin to 
establish a dialogue with the woman. Negotiations were successful, and 
the woman was taken to a local hospital for treatment. [Sgt. R. 
MacLean, USPP, NCR, 3/19]

                   [Additional reports pending...]

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

Great Smoky Mountains NP (NC/TN) - Six fields in Cades Cove 
encompassing a total of 187 acres have been successfully burned. All 
went well. Sleet fell in the area yesterday. Two more days of burning 
in Cades Cove are planned for this spring.

[NPS Situation Summary Report, 3/21]

OPERATIONAL NOTES

NPS Message Project - Information about the development of the new 
National Park Service graphic standards is available online at 
www.graphics.nps.gov. This website includes a description of the NPS 
Message Project, a short history of NPS identity (earlier logos, 
etc.), and the rationale for the establishment of new identity 
standards, as expressed in Director's Order 52A.  The site also 
includes a variety of graphic files of the modified arrowhead artwork. 
Over the next several weeks, the website will expand to include 
downloadable files of two typefaces for all NPS applications and 
samples and templates for office forms, brochures, park site 
bulletins, newspapers and other publications. Links will also be 
established to the Lighthouse for the Blind for the purpose of placing 
orders for the new NPS business cards. For specific information, 
contact Phil Musselwhite via email or at 304-535-6049. [Gary Cummins, 
Site Manager, HFC]

Geocaching - There is a new web-based activity called geocaching that 
has affected several National Park Service areas. The Ranger 
Activities Division asked Olympic NP SA Mike Butler to investigate. 
Here's his report: Geocaching is an activity in which participants 
hide a cache and take a position at the location using a GPS receiver. 
The position is then published on the group's web site with an 
invitation to search for the "treasure." Caches often contain a 
notebook or log book and something the finder may take. The finder is 
asked to put another item in the cache for others to discover and will 
often report the find on the web site. Several caches have been found 
in National Park Service areas. The webmaster for the site 
(www.geocaching.com) has been contacted. He was very surprised that 
geocaching is illegal in NPS areas, and understood NPS concerns about 
the damage geocaching has and can cause to historic, archeological and 
natural sites. He agreed to work with the Service to discourage 
further geocaching activities in parks. Two related activities were 
also discovered. Letterboxing (www.letterboxing.org) is a phenomenon 
similar to geocaching in that a player takes directions from a web 
site and uses those directions to find a hidden object. In 
letterboxing, the directions come in the form of a riddle and the 
hidden object is a stamp which the finder can use to stamp a piece of 
paper to prove that he has visited the site. The web site showed the 
location of at least two letterboxes in parks. The parks have been 
notified, but the Service has not yet contacted the webmaster or game 
managers. The Degree Confluence Project (www.confluence.org) is 
another web-based activity where people try to visit various latitude 
and longitude integer degree intersections and report their findings 
on the web site. In this case, however, no objects are placed in the 
ground, and there are no apparent regulatory violations in areas where 
cross-country travel is allowed or where the confluence is not on a 
protected site. There has been no attempt to contact the project 
organizers. [Mike Butler, SA, OLYM]

PARKS AND PEOPLE

Mississippi NR&RA (MN) - The park has two openings. The first is for a 
GS-0025-11/12 supervisory park ranger (interpretation); the second is 
for a GS-0023-5/7 outdoor recreation planner. Both close on April 
12th. The duty station is St. Paul, Minnesota. The former is being 
announced as merit promotion (CTDG-1-0312) and open competitive 
(CTDG-1-0249). The latter has been announced as open competitive 
(CTDG-1-0245). [Denise St. Marie, MISS]

ADDITIONAL SECTIONS

Regular sections not appearing today but available at all times for 
submissions:

o       Natural/Cultural Resource Management - Significant 
        developments in these fields.
o       Interpretation/Visitor Services - Significant developments in 
        these fields.
o       Memoranda - Memoranda from WASO to the field on all 
        operational matters.
o       Interchange - Requests or offers from any park or office for 
        materials, information or any other operational needs.
o       Film at 11 - Reports on current or upcoming print or 
        electronic media stories on the NPS.

                            *  *  *  *  *

Distribution of the Morning Report is through a mailing list managed 
by park, office and/or regional cc:Mail hub coordinators.  Please 
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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