Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Melissa Davlin: Idaho has 30 state parks, and we're just getting out that they're great places to visit.

This week, we get an update on how recent improvements to those parks are going.

I'm Melissa Davlin.

Idaho Reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week we head to Bruneau Dunes State Park to catch up with Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation Director Susan Buxton over the status of record investments made into Idaho state parks over the last few years.

But first, let's get you caught up on the week.

On Friday morning, the Idaho Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Idahoans United v Labrador regarding the attorney general's proposed ballot language for a citizens ballot initiative that would legalize abortion in the state before fetal viability, with an exemption after that point for medical emergencies.

Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst defended the Attorney General's use of the phrase fetus viability in the proposed ballot titles, which sponsors argue is biased against the initiative.

Alan Hurst: And that word fetus is already, you know, not the way the A.G. himself would be inclined to think of this term.

The statutory term is unborn child.

Right.

If we're searching for the very most common term, like ordinary language term, you know, nobody meets a pregnant woman and walks up and asks, how is the fetus doing?

They ask, how's the baby?

The actual common terms here are on our side.

And the attorney general avoided those and used the clinical term fetus that they use in the initiative, and that they use in their ballot titles.

Robyn Brody: It's often a debate of, you know, on one side, you have those who advocate for a woman's right to pursue abortion, to talking about medical issues and fetus viability that kind of thing.

And on the other side of the aisle, you've got people saying it's an unborn child, it's a baby.

You know, regardless of what phase, the baby is in, it's a baby it’s a person.

And so I guess when we look at the change up of language, is it basically signaling, oh, we've just cloaked this debate.

The public debate.

We've just cloaked it in, in words, fetal versus fetus.

But really, it's the same public debate.

We're just we're just pretending like we're not doing that.

Hurst: If the two terms are not synonymous, like if fetus favors us slightly and fetal favors them slightly, which we don't concede.

Then you know, why is it that the one that's in favor wins out when the statutory standard is you're not supposed to be either in favor or against?

Why isn't the solution, then?

Alternate the terms like the A.G. did?

Davlin: On Monday, U.S.

Congressman Mike Simpson announced he is co-sponsoring the Public Lands in Public Hands Act to ban the sale or transfer of most federal land except under specific conditions.

In a press release, Simpson said, quote, Idaho's abundance of parks, forests and public lands makes our state a wonderful place to live, work and play.

Public lands were set aside for public use, and we have a responsibility to ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the same benefits we sometimes take for granted today.

The act, sponsored by Montana's representative Ryan Zinke, comes as some in D.C. have floated proposals to sell off some federal land.

And earlier this month, the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment to a House spending bill that would have blocked the sale of federal lands.

More than 60% of land in Idaho is owned and managed by the federal government, which has long contributed to tension over issues like access and land management.

But there's been some progress in easing that tension in recent years.

The Good Neighbor Authority, authorized by Congress in 2014, allows the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to enter into land management agreements with state and local partners.

And in March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to increase timber production on federal lands and streamline forest management to reduce wildfire risk.

On Tuesday, Governor Brad Little issued an executive order directing the state Department of Lands to expand partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service in cooperation with the Trump administration.

Miller: 60% of the state is owned and managed by the federal government, and more than 6 million acres of National Forest System lands are, severely at risk for insect and disease infestations and consequently, wildfire.

You couple that with a rapidly changing Idaho, more growth, more expansion of the wildland urban interface, more ignitions.

This creates a forest health and a wildfire crisis here in Idaho.

But we are uniquely positioned here at the Department of Lands, working with our partners to play a role in addressing this, this risk and this crisis here in Idaho.

Since 2016 the Department of Lands has utilized its Good Neighbor Authority to help establish timber sales and increase the pace and scale of National Forest System land restoration.

And this has really created a lot of strong partnerships, especially between us and the U.S. Forest Service.

And so we stand ready to expand these efforts on federal lands, utilizing our expertise, to get more work done.

Davlin: We'll have more with Director Miller next week on the Idaho Reports podcast.

Here in Idaho, we have our own public lands to manage, including 30 state parks.

Over the last five years, Idaho has hosted a record number of visitors at those parks.

That increase in visitors came as the state was struggling to catch up with deferred maintenance at many of those facilities.

Over the course of three fiscal years starting in 2022.

The legislature appropriated a total of $160 million to improve Idaho state parks, with the 95 million coming from state surplus funds and another 65 million coming from the American Rescue Plan Act.

On Thursday, the Idaho Reports team headed to Bruneau Dunes State Park to catch up with director Susan Buxton and find out how that money was put to use and to tour the facilities and sand sledding opportunities at the dunes.

Holy moly!

Oh man.

Greg Harman: The new observatory.

That one's been here since, June of 2023.

And that really takes our programs and our capabilities to a whole new level with the research capabilities.

It's fully accessible.

It can be operated remotely.

Really excited about what that that is offering, to Idahoans, to students, and and all that.

Davlin: That's so cool.

That's awesome.

Wow.

Director Buxton, thank you so much for joining us.

I have to admit, I'm an Idaho girl.

I grew up here and we my family was a huge fan of state parks going back.

And in fact, my mom still has these Eagle Island State Park slide passes that are 30 years old that I had to bring to tell you, just to prove my cred, right, that we've loved Idaho State Parks for years and years.

But a lot's changed in 30 years with Idaho State Parks.

Susan Buxton: Well, Melissa, thank you for being here.

And thank you for coming to Bruneau Dunes State Park to do this interview.

I know it's tough to bring your whole crew down here to do the interviews, but we're very excited to show off the new observatory, which we're inside today.

I, too, grew up in Idaho and grew up in Boise going to state parks and Eagle Island.

I probably should have kept one at some of those, from the from the old slide that was there.

But, you know, a lot of things have changed with state parks, and our state parks are the gems of our state.

And that the legislature and, the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation Board over the years since it was created in 1965, have preserved, you know, we've had state parks in the system for over 100 years.

So they've been run by different agencies.

But, you know, the first one was Harom.

Excuse me.

The first one was Heyburn State Park, which is out of, the Plummer area.

It's on the south end of Lake Coeur d'Alene.

And it's about 7000 acres, and it's one of the first state parks.

It is the first state park in the northwest, not just in Idaho.

It was supposed to be a national park, but in the end, the United States actually deeded it to by patent to the state of Idaho.

Who actually paid, they actually paid for it then in 1909.

And so since then, that's been, a beloved place as well.

So and as you know, Harriman State Park was kind of a catalyst to create this agency.

When the Harriman family came to Governor Smiley and said, we will deed the railroad ranch to you, which was at the terminus of, the Union Pacific Railroad.

That was the Yellowstone piece of that.

And the family had been there and had their ranch.

And it's beautiful.

And I'd love to have you come there to see how we have addressed a lot of the deferred maintenance lately and, and really made sure that the next generations are going to be able to enjoy that as well.

Davlin: Let's talk a little bit about those next generations, because one of the biggest challenges that the state parks have faced recently is growth.

Especially since Covid hit.

Can you talk a little bit about the numbers that you've seen?

Buxton: So in 2020, we all know what happened, 2020, in the pandemic.

And because we had other states that were shutting down their state parks, you even had the federal government shutting down some of that, some of the, their facilities for national forests, or Bureau of Land Management and those areas.

Idaho kept them open mostly.

And quickly we were able to adjust to getting facilities ready for people to come back into the parks.

And what happened was we saw about a 35% spike in the, in the visitation.

And so what that meant, it went well over 7 million people came to our state parks in Idaho.

And like I said, you said 30 state parks.

And, you know, those state parks are really just trailheads to other public lands around us, whether it be federal land, federally managed lands, or state managed lands.

So every one of them is has some access to others, other public lands.

So with that, you know, people were really looking for solace, but we're really not seeing a big decrease in people coming.

People got used to it and they got they got used to coming back outside.

And you know, people live and stay and come to Idaho because of our great outdoors.

And the outdoor recreation industry in Idaho is about a $4 billion industry.

And from that it you know, we derive about one a little over 1 billion of that economic benefit from the state parks and our recreation programs that comes from the Idaho Depart Bryce Bealba: One thing that's constant is all of our visitors are looking to reconnect with nature, get back outdoors, see a unique space, and have a unique experience.

But there are some expectations that are changing.

Certainly connectivity.

We're seeing a lot more visitors that want to have Wi-Fi, either in the campgrounds or like here at the park.

We have two hot spots at the visitor center and down here at the Steele Reese Education Center, so you can at least check in, get your email and things like that.

Some of the other expectations.

A lot of our RVs are getting bigger and bigger and draw a lot more power.

And so the 30 amp or 15 amp connections that you might have experienced in the 60s, those are now 50 amp and they're growing exponentially as people are putting more and more things into some of their RVs.

Experience wise, there's all kinds of new sports that are happening.

Fat tire biking obviously stand up paddle boards are coming on pretty strong.

Drone use is a big demand.

And so the technology is changing a little bit, but just the ideas of what you can do outside.

And so we're trying to adapt to that.

Buxton: When you have growth, you have impacts.

And so what you have to do is, I, you know, one of the first things that happened, I was the I became the interim director of state parks, when my predecessor, David Langhorse, retired in the summer of 2020.

And so on September 1 was my first day.

And so on September 2nd, I asked, what's the deferred maintenance back backlog at this point?

I had served on the state Parks board prior to this, so I was a little I was pretty familiar with the state parks system.

And so asking that question, what's happening?

You know, we have this influx of people.

People are just really coming into the parks.

And so what's happening?

Where are we seeing the biggest impacts?

So we were able to work with the governor's office and the legislature to get some CARES act money to address a lot of places that are really getting impacted.

For instance, up at Priest Lake, we have a it's called Indian, you know, it's not Indian Creek.

Indian Creek is one of our big campgrounds there.

But Priest Lake, it has Lion's Head and there's people coming, you know, Washingtonians were coming in and Idahoans were coming in and people were just parking everywhere.

So we're able to actually re reorganize a campground and a day use facility to add more parking, to add some hardened spots as far as pavement and where people can, you know, what we call, living, living pads so that people aren't just, you know, walking over all the, in areas that don't have trails or don't have pathways.

And then, you know, you're seeing the shrubbery and the trees really being impacted by that.

So we redid that and then we actually added a big parking lot to Box Canyon, which is down at Thousand Springs State park, down, right out of, out of Gooding, basically.

And in that area, people just trying to get down to Box Canyon.

So we added a huge parking lot and a road so people could get off the highway.

And then I actually added ADA parking so people could get there too, and see the rim of the canyon instead of trying to get down this little dirt road.

Bear Lake, we added 300 parking spots to the east side of Bear Lake.

Because people were flocking in, both from Idaho and from Utah.

And so.

And actually Farragut State Park.

Farragut is one of our more busy parks out of, right?

It's north of Coeur d'Alene.

And we added, I think, between 30 and 35 truck and trailer parking spots for people to get their boats in, because it's one of the only boat ramps that's open to the public that's easily accessible.

So those are the types of things we started looking at, started doing.

Where do we have the impact?

Where do we need to do the deferred maintenance?

Where there had been either no increased capacity and certainly lots of deferred maintenance and deferred maintenance was pushing $200 million.

Davlin: A lot of the increased capacity, there was room for that.

There was that deferred maintenance that needed to be addressed.

But Idaho keeps growing.

And interest in our outdoors is baked into our DNA as Idahoans and people in the northwest.

Is there a point at which you're worried that we're not going to have the capacity anymore to, to host everyone who is interested in visiting the state parks?

Buxton: Well, you know, some of the some places are just physically limited.

So if you look at Spring Shores Marina, which is right at Lucky Peak, not that far from here, it's, there's just only so much room.

We were able to add part of that money, that early money in that first couple of years was to add a, add an additional lane so people could get, you know, go down towards Arrow Rock.

It's still they’ll basically get in and try and park.

We added additional parking spaces there for, you know, trucks and trailer trucks, trailers or cars and trailers for people to get out there into that area that we all where we could.

And that's limited.

One, a good example also is Bear Lake State Park, which is right on the border of Idaho and Utah.

And so we will get hundreds of people a day in the summer that want to get out on the beach.

It's a beautiful beach.

The pictures of it are stunning.

But we’ve actually turned to a system of, an online system.

And what was really interesting about that is that people would get up early in the morning and they would drive up the highway, and they would line up, sometimes for over a mile, to try and get into that state park.

So we were able to get kind of creative.

Our staff was great.

They said, why don't we do an online system?

I was like, well, let's try it.

And so what they did, you can get a reservation online.

You can go into Bear Lake State Park.

And so once those reservations are full, they're full.

But that way people can plan and they don't have their kids sitting in the car trying to get into the State Park and finding out that they, that the parking lot is full.

Davlin: There are also reservations and a lottery system for some of the more popular campgrounds now.

Buxton: Yes.

And so the reservation system, we've always had the reservation system, but the reservation system was a little clunky.

And so we were able to address that with a new reservation system that we just launched in January of this year.

And it's a lot more user friendly.

If I had my cell phone, I'd say, hey, and this is how I talked to the legislature about it.

If you were trying to get, use the old one, it wasn't very mobile friendly.

And so this one is you can actually get there, you know, you don't have to have an account.

So it's really kind of, a new, a new way to do that.

And some of the, group camps, group camps are pretty popular now.

Group camps are where, you know, you can get your family or your, you know, your family friends, you know, church groups, whoever want to get together because people want to camp together.

And so instead of trying to get online and try and reserve the whole campground, we have group camps.

And we're adding more group camps too, to the capacity.

Because one of the things I was talking to the legislature and the governor's office about with the deferred maintenance funding that we were able to acquire and get appropriated is we need to address the deferred maintenance.

We got to quit keeping our state parks together with twine and duct tape.

And so and fixing things like the sewer, the water, the roads, bridges and those types of things.

But at the same time, we need to increase capacity.

So where we're fixing things and we can increase capacity, we will do that.

And so with this we're going to add at least 250 campsites, 25 day use areas, and 150 docks or boat slips.

So with that, we're kind of trying to address it.

Davlin: Not all the improvements you've made have had to do with deferred maintenance or capacity.

You have also worked to make a lot of the parks more ADA accessible.

Buxton: Yeah, one of the, one of the recent, ones we did in conjunction with the, the Bureau of Reclamation was at Crown Point Campground.

So Crown Point’s right out of Cascade, Idaho, and you can go see there's a ramp that gets people down and gets into a fishing dock too.

And so and then there's ADA access accessible parking spots and even, you know, so wherever we're changing or updating things we're adding ADA access.

Harman: This telescope was donated by the Boise Astronomical Society in the mid 1990s.

Came online in 1998.

This is what we call a dobsonian telescope.

It's a very large light bucket.

And it gets excellent views.

The difference from this and the new telescope is what the new telescope can do.

As far as, the research and the imaging and all that kind of stuff.

This one's just not at that level, anywhere near that level.

But for views, for looking through the telescope, getting some nice, views of galaxies and star clusters.

This telescope is awesome.

The advantage with the new telescope is that that eyepiece is down 45in.

It's it's fully accessible.

That is the one drawback with this one.

Is the the tall ladder.

Davlin: How is your department's relationship with the federal government?

Where do you interact with the feds?

Buxton: We work closely with, all of the federal lands managers.

For instance, state parks, we actually manage some of their facilities, like Lucky Peak is a Corps of Engineers, site.

And so they're right there.

Recreation Piece, which is Spring Shores Marina and Sandy Point.

Those are part of that state park that we manage.

Bureau of Reclamation is Lake Cascade and Walcott State Park.

And so we work with them to make sure that the facilities are managed and maintained as best we can.

But Bureau of Reclamation is one of those that actually provides additional funding for us.

And, the money that's made, those actually go back into those facilities.

Same thing with the BLM.

We have a facility, a campground that we run on their behalf down at City of Rocks, Castle Rock State Park, or down at Alamo.

Forest Service, we work closely with them with, you know, park and ski lots and, camp, campsites, day use sites and those things too.

But we work closely with them on a lot of things because and then on trails, the trail program, with regard to the Forest Service and the BLM management is a big, it's a big program of ours, our recreation bureau.

So we have a trail, trail rangers, we have six trail rangers that are full time, and they're located in Idaho Falls, Boise, and over in eastern Idaho out of American Falls.

And what we do with them, actually, it's at the it's out of Idaho Falls.

I was thinking of a different group that we've got over in American Falls.

But what we do is we have them, they have little tiny bulldozers.

And we'll have to get you some pictures of those, and little backhoes.

And then we go in with, with side by sides and motorcycles and our motorcycles are all equipped with, with a sheathe, so you can put a chainsaw on them.

So after we clear about 2000 miles of trail a year for the public on these, on federally managed lands.

Because if we didn't, a lot of those facilities would probably not be open like this.

And this this program has gone on voluntarily for over 30 years, maybe 40 years.

So I, and that's the sticker program for off highway vehicles, snowmobiles.

And, and we also have the boating program too.

Davlin: With some of the employment changes and budgetary changes and uncertainty with the federal government right now, are you anticipating any effects on that relationship or those programs that you work together with the federal government on?

Buxton: We've actually reached out to them to ask them how we can help, how we can work with them to, finish some projects that we've actually got funding for.

Back to the sticker program I was talking about with off highway vehicles and snowmobiles and, and those projects, many of those projects, we have a grant program as well.

And so we give out about $10 million worth of grants a year.

And many of those do go onto federal lands.

And so to make sure that those get done, like, little bridges and, you know, sometimes updating a bathroom or updating a campsite or updating a day use area or it's really trails, trail maintenance.

You know, how do we do that?

Working with them, working with there's lots of volunteer groups that we work with too, and some of the volunteer groups, we’ll actually pay them.

For, you know, a certain amount of money per mile that they'll go, that they'll go clear, out on out in the systems as well.

So we do have that and we're actually working with them as where can we have some of our seasonals.

Make sure that that some of these areas that we keep even, you know, even more of those trails open as possible.

So we're working closely with them.

And, you know, I've had meetings with them all as much as possible.

But I think that one of the things we do think will happen from the national perspective, we do expect that state parks will be seeing more use because of the uncertainty with regard to whether a campground will be open or not or, or something like that.

So we're all looking, looking to, to make sure that the public has ample places to go because we want to have people out in the outside.

I want people outside.

And I am a believer that you have, you know, you keep public lands open for the public, not from the public.

So how do we work together to do that?

And, and make sure that they do it responsibly.

And we do have a, responsible, recreate responsibly campaign that we have through our, our department, that you'll see both on, you know, radio, social media, TV you know, and certain things too.

Davlin: We've talked a lot about the last few years in state parks and the changes that you've made.

But what does the future look like for Idaho state parks?

Buxton: I think future is great for Idaho state parks.

And we've got a lot of people that are, you know, we're that that are excited to work with us and help us and get the word out about it.

I think a lot of people may not know all the assets that we have, all the assets that the state has, and they are things that we want people to know.

You know, we've got the foster families in the Park program that we did with health and welfare.

Alex Adams and I worked together to do that.

And we actually got, we got donations for that.

Reagents Blue Shield actually donated the first amount of money so that we could give foster families each a passport, a $10 passport for their vehicle.

So that means they get access to the state parks for a vehicle for a whole year.

Same thing with Idaho business with the outdoors.

They actually helped with the helped with that and donated significant funds for that too.

And now we've got more people working with the Kiwanis Club and Schwab and some other ones that are working towards those things to help us.

And then part of that program is not just to give them a state park passport, but to get them in the park.

So we'll be having here at Bruneau Dunes, the first weekend of May, a foster family in the park day where we're having, the foster families are invited to come here.

The kids will be able to get their Junior Ranger badge.

We'll have people showing people, you know, how do you how do you pitch a tent?

How do you fish?

How do you tie a knot?

How would how you put out a fire, build a fire.

And those things, again, keeping people responsible.

You’ll have the ability to come in and look at the planet, the planetarium feature that we have in the, here in the observatory, as well as the solar telescope that you saw.

And at the same thing, same time, if they want to stay a bit, stay later, they could probably, you know, watch the programs at night programs too.

So those are things we're trying to do.

We're going to be doing those statewide.

Where at the other state parks in conjunction with health and welfare and our and our other, our partners that are helping us do that.

So that's an exciting thing.

And then, you know, trying to work with all schools, schools come into our parks all the time.

And so the interpretive piece of what we do in state parks to have children and their teachers come in and do, you know, every park has something unique about it.

And that's why it's a state park.

And so we really encourage schools to come in, and we have programs for them to come in too, so.

Davlin: Our thanks to Director Buxton and the employees at Bruneau Dunes State Park for spending their day with us, and thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you right back here next week.

Narrator: Presentation of Idaho Reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.