Congressman Golden visits Acadia National Park to discuss deferred maintenance

Congressman Jared Golden and local leaders visited Acadia National Park and hiked a trail that is being restored.

The purpose was to learn more about work being done to take reduce the deferred maintenance list at the park.

"The goal today is to simply raise awareness about legislation that the entire Maine delegation is supporting. It's really all about eliminating the backlog of work that needs to be done."

The park superintendent says the issues are just below the surface.

"A lot of the stuff the visitors see look like they are in good shape, and so it is culverts that are under roads, it's ditches, drainage features that are alongside roads. It's things like our maintenance building which is a back of the house function, but it supports everything we do here, and the roof is literally about to fall in."

This visit is a part of a campaign to support the passage of deferred maintenance legislation currently pending in Congress.

"It's about all the national parks around the country. They are obviously important commitments that as a country recognize it is worthy of conserving and setting aside the general public to enjoy and get out and see the very best of what the country has to offer."

We're told the backlog is significant in Acadia National Park, and the legislation will help that significantly.

"Here at Acadia, we have got a 65-million dollar deferred maintenance backlog, and these are the kinds of issues that really our visitors care about. Having clean restrooms, having good quality trails, carriage trails that are in good shape. These are critical issues to Acadia National Park."

Congressman Golden says he hopes this visit will encourage more bipartisan support for the bill.