Park Service not comparing D-Day Memorial to other candidates

The National Park Service isn’t comparing the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford to any other sites or monuments while it evaluates the memorial’s potential for receiving federal support.

“It’s not a competition. We don’t compare it to other places we are studying or looking at,” said Terrence Moore, chief of park planning for the National Park Service.

Moore and a team from his office visited the D-Day Memorial in August to gather information about its features after the U.S. Senate included a study of the Bedford monument in the defense authorization bill.

The foundation that operates the memorial, which honors World War II soldiers who landed in France on June 6, 1944, has said it may not be able to continue operating without a reliable source of funding.

Nineteen Bedford-area soldiers died under German gunfire in the first wave of American soldiers who hit Omaha Beach, and others from the county also were dead by day’s end.

The memorial was dedicated in 2001.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., during a visit to the D-Day Memorial before Moore’s team arrived, said other sites around the nation also wanted to be included in the federal park system.

The park service is studying several sites, Moore said, but those studies are not like the fast-track review that’s being done for the D-Day Memorial.

The normal study of a potential national park takes at least two years and usually much longer, Moore said. Those studies are sent to Congress, which can vote the sites into the park system.

“This one isn’t going through the study process,” Moore said. “It’s a request for the president to act, rather than for Congress to act.”

His team’s report on the D-Day Memorial is expected to reach Interior Secretary Ken Salazar within about a month, Moore said. Salazar requested the report after the Bedford site’s review was added to the defense bill, which still hasn’t been approved by the U.S. House.

Warner, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District, are urging park service officials to help rescue the financially ailing memorial.

They’re hoping the review will supply reasons for President Barack Obama to declare the memorial a national monument under the federal Antiquities Act.

Moore said his team’s review would include legal research on whether a recently built site such as the D-Day Memorial can qualify for presidential approval under the Antiquities Act.

It’s doubtful the memorial can be considered an antiquity, said a spokeswoman for the National Parks Conservation Association. The privately funded association works to build support for the park service, said Catharine Gilliam, its Virginia program manager.

“We never heard from the people at the D-Day Memorial Foundation or from any elected officials, so it’s not as if we’ve been briefed,” Gilliam said.

“We would not take a position” on whether the memorial should be part of the park system, Gilliam said.

But she added, “It seems highly improbable that the Antiquities Act would be applicable. It’s not an antiquity.”

Another bill proposed in Congress would have the National Park Service do a “special resource study” for the D-Day Memorial. “That would be a more appropriate route to take,” Gilliam said.

William McIntosh, the D-Day Memorial Foundation’s director, has said he doesn’t think the memorial can operate through the winter unless some sort of financial rescue can be formed.

Gilliam said the difficulties in becoming a national park have been illustrated in the northern Shenandoah Valley, where Cedar Creek and Belle Grove Park were added to the park service by act of Congress in 2002.

“The citizens worked for well over a decade to get that park created,” she said. “They have not yet had the funds and resources to fully realize the vision for that park.”

The park service also has conducted a short review of another Virginia site, Fort Monroe, which is set to close under the federal Base Realignment and Closure plans.

“They have not yet started a special resource study” that could lead to Fort Monroe’s being included in the park system, Gilliam said.

“Parks are underfunded in achieving their mission,” Gilliam said. “It’s important that we tell Congress the parks need to be properly funded. The Blue Ridge Parkway, Shenandoah National Park and Appomattox Courthouse all have a need for increased funding,” she said.