Dan Little, a retired forest service worker, took matters into his own hands when the shutdown left his local wilderness a mess

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The longest ever government shutdown has left US national parks chronically understaffed, with grim consequences: messy toilets, broken Joshua trees, and unsupervised campers.

Keeping US national parks open during the shutdown is a terrible mistake | Jonathan B Jarvis Read more

But some are taking matters into their own hands. Enter Dan Little, a retired data expert with the US National Forest Service and the husband of Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown. Little recently tidied up filthy bathrooms at Mount Hood national forest’s sno-park – then sent the bill to the White House.

“This is just one of the many reasons I love my husband,” the governor tweeted on Friday. “Like many national parks across the country, [he] found it a mess due to the partial government shutdown.”

Brown’s tweet includes a stark before-and-after picture of a bathroom whose trash can was overflowing with old food wrappers and dirty paper plates.

Many of America’s major parks, historic sites and monuments are dealing with trash, vandalism and unruly visitors as the National Park Service struggles to manage public lands. More than 350 parks are experiencing some type of closure because of the shutdown, now in its fourth week, and the vast majority of park service employees – an estimated 16,000 – are furloughed.

Without the federal employees, the parks are left vulnerable. Reports from parks across the country claim similar sightings of uncontrollable littering and other signs of crisis at the parks, including human waste on the side of road at Yosemite and severed trees at Joshua Tree national park.

Volunteers and businesses have started pitching in to ensure the maintenance of federal lands. Volunteers like Little have spent hours picking up trash, restocking toilet paper and cleaning bathrooms. The not-for-profit organization Friends of Joshua Tree has dozens of volunteers who have been cleaning the park each morning. Yellowstone national park businesses have been paying $250 to $300 to have maintenance crews manage a portion of the park.

Brown told Oregon state park workers to start looking into how they could help nearby federal parks after she noticed dirty bathrooms being used despite closure signs on a ski trip, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. State park workers have already started emptying trash cans throughout the state.

Keeping US national parks open during the shutdown is a terrible mistake | Jonathan B Jarvis Read more

Little hasn’t received the $28 he charged Donald Trump yet, according to a spokesperson in Brown’s office. It’s unlikely he’ll ever see the cash, since Trump openly blames Democrats for the shutdown.

“Thoughtful discussions about national security are of course important, but not at the expense of people who work day in and out to make all our lives better and safer,” Little wrote in a Facebook post. “There is at least one sno-park that’s feeling a little Oregon love once again.”