Dem ties help 'pork park' pass

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By Tom LoBianco and Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Call it the Pork Park: Congress this week passed a bill creating a national historic park in Paterson, N.J., ensuring years of funding for the downtrodden area despite objections by the National Park Service that the park does not deserve federal dollars.

The 40-acre Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park was one of scores of parks and conservation projects that the House approved Wednesday as part of the $8 billion omnibus public lands bill. President Obama is expected to sign the measure soon.

The park was included in the legislation thanks to the backing of powerful forces in Congress. Among its champions are the former mayor of Paterson who now represents its district in Congress and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's chief of staff, who is a Paterson native. John Lawrence, Mrs. Pelosi's top aide, made a rare appearance at a congressional hearing in 2007 that discussed the long-debated park.

Paterson's 77-foot waterfall on the Passaic River was the engine of the city's industry, which has been called one of the birthplaces of America's Industrial Revolution.

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., New Jersey Democrat and former mayor of Paterson, said creating a park around the waterfall would demonstrate "the value that urban parks bring to the national park system and to local communities."

Opponents say locals are trying to tap into federal money because the area was unable to raise matching funds to earn an economic development grant. Although not a traditional earmark, the project is a way of ensuring a perpetual flow of taxpayer dollars to the park.

"What you couldn't do under a grant program, by having people help themselves, you're now going to make everyone pay for," said Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees national parks.

He said the park service is already overloaded with claims on its money: "Especially, for those of us in the West, I don't want to pull region here, but we already have unfunded liabilities in the national park system."

The park service hardly ever tells Congress no but says in this case that the park is not needed.

A 2006 National Park Service study said the site is neither suitable nor feasible, the park system already includes enough waterfalls and similar cultural sites, and Paterson is already well-protected by the state. The study noted that Niagara Falls has never been designated a national park because it is protected by New York.