Camping is the only vacationing I do so this is really disappointing. And we know that it will have an impact on the economy of the places affected.
WVIA – Raystown Lake cancels campground reservations amid federal job cuts and hiring freezes WPSU | By Sydney Roach Published March 14, 2025 at 3:58 PM EDT Raystown Lake in Huntingdon County is canceling this year’s campground reservations, citing staff shortages amid recent federal job cuts and hiring freezes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the property, said scheduled recreation and stewardship events also will be reduced and could be canceled. Matt Price, the executive director of the Huntingdon County Visitors Bureau, is worried about the impact on tourism and revenue. “Every visitor to our area is a significant economic impact,” Price said. “So when you compound that by thousands of visitors over the course of a camping season, it’s a tremendous economic impact.” Raystown Lake historically brings in $1.2 million in revenue every year, according to the county’s visitors bureau. And, each year it draws more than 1 million visitors.
We’re lucky here in Pennsylvania, and in upstate New York, that we have a great many state owned and run parks and forests with camping options. But the closure of national land camping options are going to push those people into already crowded state parks and forests campsites.
And how long before the Musk Trump cultural revolution comes for those too? They’re already planning on commandeering public lands for their company towns called “network states” where tycoons can have fiefdoms not subject to nuclear safety or worker protections.
This is a disability justice issue as well. As campgrounds shut down, and the parks still open become more crowded, there will be less places for high risk people to go who need to avoid exposure to crowds. And there will be less access to peace and quiet for the wellbeing of anyone who needs it.
My letter to reps:
The closure of federally controlled campgrounds in our state is going to put extra pressure on the state camping options which are already often crowded nowadays because camping is very popular option for many of us for a variety of reasons. The economic impact of these closures makes it curious that politicians would ever be on board with the Musk Trump cuts that are doing this. I worry that this is a corruption scheme to try to steal, liquidate and privatize public campgrounds, and this would be unfair, outrageous, and unacceptable. You MUST stop the defunding of parks and forests.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
Parks, forests, and nature, are economic powerhouses, actually. If all you care about is the economics when it comes to parks and public lands, then you should want them, because setting aside and preserving nature is actually very good for The Economy. Chloe Humbert Mar 13, 2025
The mass firing of federal workers is a privatization boondoggle to rip off taxpayers and put us into company towns. It couldn’t be clearer that the whole purpose of firing all these staff is to privatize everything by force, and follow through with their plans to form corporate fiefdoms. Chloe Humbert Mar 09, 2025
