National Park Service to Resume Maintenance at Washington, D.C., Parks

The National Park Service has announced that it will resume maintenance services in Washington, D.C.-area parks. The announcement comes after parks across the country have been overflowing with trash amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.

Since the shutdown, the National Mall in D.C. has been scattered with trash near the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol. Area agencies and organizations have been doing their part to pick up the federal government’s slack during the shutdown.

The Hill recently reported that members of a Muslim youth group collected trash and cleaned up national parks around the U.S. over the weekend of January 5 and 6. Dozens of people associated with Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, the largest national organization for Muslim youths, cleaned up litter, emptied trash cans and swept the grounds in places such as the Everglades National Park in Florida and Joshua Tree National Park in California.

WAMU has more details:

The National Park Service announced that it would resume maintenance services in Washington-area parks on Friday, including the National Mall, George Washington Memorial Parkway, and Rock Creek Park. It will also reopen several bathrooms at sites around the Mall.

The Park Service has not completed any trash collection, roadwork, or sanitation services in its parks since the federal shutdown began on Dec. 22.

It will dip into fee revenue from national parks across the country to cover the costs. Those funds are typically reserved for future projects.

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