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Superintendent’s Annual Report to the Friends of Valley Forge Park
FY 2007 (October 1, 2006 – September 30, 2007)
Submitted October 10, 2007 by Mike Caldwell
With the completion of the park’s general management plan (GMP), the National Park Service has a well defined set of prioritized actions that enjoy strong public and political support and that will continue to strengthen the park. The most important GMP priorities and the progress made to date in achieving them are the subject of this annual report.
Restoration and rehabilitation of the park’s historic structures and landscapes
is a GMP priority. In the last three fiscal years, over $12 million in capital investment has been programmed for rehabilitation of the park’s historic buildings. Through federal funding, partnerships with organizations that share the park’s mission of preservation and interpretation, and leasing, more existing buildings will be rehabilitated and returned to active use, and there has been over a 20% improvement in the condition of historic structures in two years.
Restoration of the park’s historic landscapes also is underway.
By the end of 2008, over 6.5 acres of intrusive parking lots and roads will have been removed, and the landscape restored to its historic contour and vegetation. The plans for pavement removal were the subject of a public evaluation process completed last autumn. The before-and-after pictures of the restorations completed so far are dramatic.
An even larger and more significant restoration of the historic landscape is in the works. The NPS is in discussions with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on a settlement for the asbestos release site. Settlement will enable the immediate remediation of toxics, returning this area to public use. Completion of remediation also will enable the park to immediately fill the quarries that have impaired the Grand Parade for over a century, restoring this central historic landscape to its historic appearance.We also are delighted with progress on restoration of one of the park’s historic tour roads. Decades of layers of asphalt have been removed and historic hand-laid stone gutters have been revealed and restored. When completed in mid 2008, the road will closely resemble its turn-of-the-20th-century appearance.
Natural resources restoration is a GMP priority.
The park has initiated a plan and environmental impact statement to manage the herd of white-tailed deer. This science-based plan is the subject of intense public interest and discussion, and the park has implemented a rigorous public involvement process to ensure that everyone who is interested is able to participate in defining issues, providing information, identifying alternatives, and commenting on the draft and final plans and their impacts. We continue to believe that the best way to deal with any controversy is through complete transparency and through genuinely reaching out to everyone who may have an interest, whether pro or con.
Implementation of the selected alternative for deer management will enable the park to begin restoration of our forests. Our work with a team of expert scientists already is underway, and is expected to serve as a model for forest restoration for the region, as other governments and land managers deal with their own issues with white-tailed deer in the future.
Education is a priority for GMP implementation.
This summer the park held its third annual teachers’ institute on the American Revolution, again sold-out; and again developed and operated with a host of educational and historical site partners. This year, in cooperation with our teacher advisory group, we introduced two new school programs that augment school curricula, and participation by schools in our education programs grew substantially. A major curriculum on the American Revolution—Honored Places—was completed, published, and widely distributed this year at no cost to teachers. This project was led by the park with the participation of multiple national park sites, the New York Historical Society, and historians. An NPS official themed handbook on the American Revolution is now in final design, led by Valley Forge NHP. Thirteen revolutionary war sites contributed content and funding for this project. The park worked with two partners, including the Friends of Valley Forge Park, to hold the first of a bi-annual series of symposia on the American Revolution that featured pre-eminent authors and scholars. The park welcomes all opportunities to work with groups of outside experts and partners to help ensure an even broader palette of educational programs accessible to an even wider range of school groups.
The provision of a vibrant and broadly available set of visitor experiences and interpretive opportunities is a GMP priority.
The second year of partnership with Once Upon A Nation has been extremely successful, as measured by visitation, comments and letters from our visitors, and numerous articles in the press. We could not have had this success without the generous support of local foundations and corporations. The partnership with Once Upon A Nation has particularly enlivened history for children. Working in association with the park’s cooperating association—The Encampment Store—Once Upon A Nation’s daily and after-hours tours consistently sell out, and will be expanded next season.
This past year, the park was a pioneer in the use of cell phones for providing information and interpretation to our hundreds of thousands of visitors who walk, hike, and bike in the park, and who are less likely to attend traditional interpretive programs. This free program has broken national records for usage, and is being expanded even at this writing. The number of podcasts we provide also is growing, through a generous grant from PECO Energy, and all are provided to the public at no cost. The park is also putting the finishing touches on the Virtual Valley Forge project that the Friends sponsored.
This year the park has expanded the use of our historic collections for interpretation. A new program at our Welcome Center’s modest jewel of a museum brings visitors 15 gallery talks each week by collections experts on specific topics. Temporary exhibits on the role of the Perkiomen Peninsula in the Valley Forge encampment and on the unique paleontology of the park (in partnership with the Academy of Natural Science) have been mounted in the museum. An exhibition on the Valley Forge itself will open this fall in a building adjacent to Washington’s Headquarters, near the site of the forge. Most importantly, our visitors continue to enjoy our wonderful historic collections, which provide so much richness and context for the encampment, at no cost.
A signature project from the GMP that combines many of our priorities is the rehabilitation of the Washington’s Headquarters area.
This past year, rehabilitation of the historic train station began; a large intrusive road and set of sidewalks were removed and the landscape restored where the paving had been. Over the next year, the train station will be completed; the large unsightly parking lot will be removed and that landscape restored; accessible restrooms will be constructed; and a new small parking lot will be constructed in an area screened from view by topography and existing trees. Stormwater from the new parking lot will be completely infiltrated in the surrounding meadow. The third phase of the project will complete commemorative landscaping of the entire area and will provide interpretive media and exhibits introducing visitors to the leadership of General Washington and to the stories of the village of Valley Forge. I want to thank the Friends of Valley Forge for their generous pledge of $50,000 to support the interpretive media component of the project.
Relief of traffic congestion is not only a GMP priority but also a regional priority.
Our partnership with state and local agencies and civic organizations to promote solutions to the difficult traffic congestion issues in our area continues to bear fruit. The River Crossing Complex of projects that was identified to relieve congestion on Route 422 and within the park has progressed through design, and the first of the projects are funded and about to begin construction. This coalition is an award-winning model of cooperation and creativity that has received nation-wide attention and interest.
Instituting better business practices is a GMP priority.
In order to be successful in a context of increasingly constrained federal funds, the park has fundamentally changed the way that business is managed, including embracing the principles of partnership and integrating them into the fabric of our organization. We now enjoy the benefits of corporate and non-profit partnerships in every aspect of our operations. We also have implemented fiscal practices that have resulted in reducing fixed costs while also allowing the park to accomplish more in the past two years than in the previous decade, as you will note in the descriptions above. Management positions were eliminated, flattening the organization and reducing costs. Positions were realigned, focusing staff on priorities. All of this has been accomplished in a very tight budget climate. Because this management style is somewhat unusual for a national park, we are increasingly fortunate to receive grants and expert volunteer services from partners who are interested in this model.
Finally, advocacy is a GMP priority.
The park will continue to work with partners and communities to identify and assess threats to the natural and cultural resources that are related to the reasons for which the park was established. For example, we will vigorously discuss actions that threaten Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River, their water quality, and their biotic and riparian resources. We also will continue to vigorously discuss any threats to Valley Forge encampment sites and their irreplaceable historic resources. The National Park Service stands for preservation and education. Both of these are our mission and our role.
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