A former oil industry lobbyist and a keep-the-seat-warm acting National Park Service director sat down the other day to figure out how best to give the national parks the appearance of normalcy during the ongoing budget stalemate. But their solution risks further weakening park infrastructure, degrading the visitor experience, and leaving parks shy of seasonal rangers come summer.

Three weeks into the partial shutdown, trash is overflowing and human waste is blighting park roads and visitor areas. Illegal campers and off-roaders have trashed delicate ecosystems. Vandals axed some of Joshua Tree National Park’s namesake spiky evergreens.

The partial shutdown is misguided and also damaging to the parks in ways not as obvious as mounded garbage.

Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith decided this month to spend Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act revenue on daily custodial services. It was an alternative to completely closing the parks until President Trump and Congress resolved their impasse over building a southern border wall. The revenue comes largely from park entrance fees that Congress intended for improving visitor facilities and experiences, shrinking the park system’s huge maintenance backlog and hiring seasonal rangers.

What the two men did not publicly disclose is that they are willing to spend every dime of the park fees on taking out the trash and cleaning toilets.

Using visitor fees for trash and toilets sets an unfortunate precedent: Will the Park Service be forced in the future to lean on fee revenue to pay for operations that are supposed to be funded by congressional appropriations?

Deciding against a full closure of the parks appears to be an effort to avoid the public outcry that greeted that 2013 shutdown, suggested Jon Jarvis, a former National Park Service director and currently the executive director of UC Berkeley’s Institute for Parks, People, and Diversity. “The national parks were the public face of the shutdown,” he said, noting that members of Congress pushed him to acknowledge that the full shutdown was a political move, one that left many congressional constituents angry over their thwarted park visits.

But that 2013 shutdown, he said, was “a stewardship act”: Without employees on duty to manage and provide stewardship, the parks would be vulnerable. “I think we’re actually seeing that play out now,” he added.

Wildlife has been dining on garbage that normally would be collected and secure — a wildlife buffet that contributed to the decision to close Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and raised dangers of human-bear encounters at parks from Yosemite in California to Big Bend in Texas.

More damage you don’t see:

Delays in scientific research, with information gaps in data collection and monitoring of climate change and species preservation — undermining the scientific integrity of data sets.

Interrupted planning for visitor management, monitoring of environmental impacts and hiring of seasonal rangers — all which will lead to the detriment of park integrity and visitor experience. “It all just grinds to a halt,” Jarvis said of the National Park Service’s wide portfolio in its mission of preserving the nation’s treasured lands for future generations.

Even more insidious than trashy parks is Washington’s stewardship direction — with politicians bending, and possibly breaking, federal regulations for spending Park Service revenue. House Democrats and advocacy groups have called for an investigation into the revenue diversion and promise hearings into the legality of raiding park fees.

Joshua Tree typically takes in about $9 million in fees. Most, if not all, of that money from 2018 has already been committed to projects. Has acting Secretary Bernhardt ordered the park to redirect those promised funds, too, to the partial shutdown?

Just a month ago, several members of Congress were working in a bicameral, bipartisan effort to address half of the estimated $11.6 billion maintenance backlog across the park system. Now they’re back at square one.

If anyone is wondering, this is not the way to run the world’s preeminent park system.

Kurt Repanshek is president and CEO of National Parks Traveler, a nonprofit media organization and editorially independent web publication dedicated to coverage of national parks.