Vice President Biden showcases stimulus projects in national parks, meets Yellowstone employees

Vice President Biden in Yellowstone with park ranger (Photo by Beth Pratt)

As the crowd of park employees awaited the Vice President’s arrival in Yellowstone, the excitement shifted temporality to a bull moose foraging along the banks of the Madison River. Moose sightings are rare in this area and park staff quickly began snapping photographs.

Yet when the Vice President appeared he had the full attention of the group as he spoke about his love for Yellowstone amidst a backdrop of the spectacular Madison River Canyon and National Park Mountain. Biden called Yellowstone a “majestic place,” and told of how the park had helped him and his sons heal after the death of his wife and daughters. “I want my granddaughter to come back with her granddaughters and to have nothing changed.”

Watch a video of Vice President Biden talking about his love for Yellowstone:

Biden, accompanied by Director of the National Park Service Jonathan Jarvis, Yellowstone Superintendent Suzanne Lewis, and Vice President of Dick Anderson Construction, Ed Bennet, detailed the stimulus projects underway in Yellowstone and other national parks as part of the ‘Summer of Recovery.’ Yellowstone received over $12 million in stimulus funds. “We are investing today in something that has long lasting consequences that will benefit future generations,” Biden told the audience.

The investment in parks—budgeted at almost a billion dollars—also benefits the economy. Yellowstone alone contributes $340 million to the local economy and employs over 5,000 workers in the region.

A local company, Dick Anderson Construction of Montana, began construction on one of the largest of Yellowstone’s Recovery Act projects, the replacement of the Madison Wastewater Treatment Plant. Another upcoming project involves the installation of a new Micro Hydroelectric Generation Facility in Mammoth Hot Springs (replacing an old facility run by the U.S. Amy over a century ago) that will reduce greenhouse gas emission by 695 tons a year.

Biden remained after his presentation and spent time talking with the park staff and their families, willingly posing for photographs and signing autographs for those in attendance. He and his granddaughter left after the event to tour the Old Faithful Area, where President Obama and his family visited last year. Biden will visit the Grand Canyon on Tuesday.