“It is simply impossible to steward these shared American treasures properly, leaving thousands of lands and waters accessible to the public with no staff on site, even for an emergency,” the groups wrote in a letter. “The adverse impacts upon our nation’s cherished lands and waters could take years to recover.”

The Trump administration has continued to safeguard drilling and mining access to public lands during the shutdown. The federal Bureau of Land Management has accepted and published 22 new drilling permit applications in Alaska, North Dakota, New Mexico and Oklahoma since the start of the shutdown, The Washington Post reported.