NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date: Tuesday, April 15, 1997 

Broadcast: By 1000 ET

INCIDENTS

97-154 - Point Reyes NS (California) - Closure; Suspected Explosives

On April 12th, rangers responded to a report of a suspicious package on Bear
Valley trail.  The package was treated as a possible explosive device, and an
explosive ordinance disposal team was requested from Moffett Field.  The
trail was closed and approximately fifty hikers were detoured around the area
or held up until the situation could be resolved.  The EOD team set a charge
and detonated the package at the scene.  It was determined that it did not
contain explosives; circumstances and evidence suggest that it may have been
a deliberate hoax.  [Frank Dean, CR, PORE, 4/13]

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

No submissions.

OPERATIONAL NOTES

Cooperative Law Enforcement Agreements - As was noted in the April 10th
Morning Report, the National Park Service's authority to enter into
cooperative law enforcement agreements with other jurisdictions is being
challenged in federal court.  The Service has been asked to provide the court
with actual copies of ALL PAST AND CURRENT executed agreements or memoranda
of understanding which provide for cooperative law enforcement assistance to
other jurisdictions or local or state agencies.  This includes all memoranda
of agreement, memoranda of understanding, cooperative agreements, and/or
other official documents that provide for cooperative law enforcement
assistance, cross-deputization, or other reciprocal arrangements with
adjacent jurisdictions, localities, or non-Federal law enforcement agencies. 
This request excludes draft agreements or agreements that have not yet been
fully executed by all parties.  The outcome of this litigation has the
potential to adversely impact ALL parks.  Ranger Activities hopes to provide
the court with copies of at least 200 agreements; as of this date, they have
received only 16.  Copies MUST be received by APRIL 21st.  Please express
mail your responses to: National Park Service, Ranger Activities, Main
Interior Building, Room 7422, Washington, D.C. 20240, Attention: Dennis
Burnett, or fax them to 202-208-6756.

MEMORANDA

"Strengthening the NPS Wilderness Accountability System," signed by Director
Kennedy on March 28th and sent to all regional directors and the
superintendents of parks with wilderness units.  The memo recommends the
addition of wilderness management as a "major duty" in the position
descriptions of superintendents who administer any form of wilderness area
and the addition of a component dealing with effective wilderness management
as one of the five critical results elements within their performance plans. 
It also specifies that announcements for park positions with significant
wilderness responsibilities should include a KSA element which identifies
these responsibilities, and states that the management and protection of
wilderness should be integrated into the individual strategic plans being
developing for these parks in accord with the requirements of the Government
Performance and Results Act.  

EXCHANGE

No submissions.

OBSERVATIONS

This section, which appears intermittently in the Morning Report, contains
observations regarding the National Park Service, the System and the several
professions of park employees.  

"We want to keep our American wilds, quite simply, because we are among the
last industrial people who have had sustained contact with the kind of land
we now  call wilderness; it has been among us and within us, sometimes
dominating our puny attempts at civilization, for as long as we have agreed
to make a nation together.  Love it, hate it, or ignore it, wilderness is in
our American soul, and we are loath to give it up, or see it become so
diminished, so vestigial, that it ceases to be what it has always been to
us - those cussed, godforsaken, dangerous patches of outback full of things
that can kill us.  Carry water and use your wits."

                                  Author Donald Snow in "Testimony:
                                  Writers of the West Speak On Behalf
                                  of Utah Wilderness", compiled by
                                  Stephen Trimble and Terry Tempest
                                  Williams, 1996

                                *  *  *  *  *

Distribution of the Morning Report is through a mailing list managed by park,
office and/or field area cc:Mail hub coordinators.  Please address requests
for the Morning Report to your servicing hub coordinator.

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

                                  --- ### ---