ABSTRACT
The Park Service, which administers Lake Powell as a national recreation area, has built a dock a few hundred yards from Rainbow Bridge, making it easily accessible to the casual boating tourist. Every year Congress debates the merits of establishing proposed new parks, yet it spends little time on policy matters. Most people would argue that preservation versus use is the classic unsolvable dilemma, the fatal flaw in the national park idea. When Congress established the parks bureau it directed that the scenery, the natural and historic objects, and the wildlife were to be preserved, but that these resources were to be made available for people to enjoy. Often the Park Service is under fire for its stands; equally thoughtful people may arrive at different conclusions. By 1923, the president of the National Parks Association concluded, “The law has never clearly defined a national park.”
