MADISON, WI (WTAQ) – One month after 40 state parks, forests and recreational areas were closed in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, most of them will reopen — under certain conditions.
34 of those areas will reopen on Friday – including High Cliff State Park in Calumet County, with some restrictions in place. DNR Secretary Preston Cole says parks have capacities.
“Some properties will be a little bit more than 75% of that design capacity, some will be a little bit less. It will definitely be a process of monitoring, observing, and adjusting as we go along,” Cole says, “We will have staff stationed at key entrance points. When necessary, we’ll be implementing temporary closure to entry to those parks until visitation goes down a little bit.”
“Our planning practices as it relates to carrying capacity for a full park and what it looks like typically are – what can the bathrooms handle? What parking spaces are available? What’re the factors to look at?” says DNR Secretary Director Mark Aquino, “Consider it something like a building code official would look at. The carrying capacity can be dialed back some. But the notion going forward is that we can ratchet that number down or ratchet that number up depending on the response from the public.”
Aquino adds that the approach plans to open as many parks as possible as they cross thresholds set forth by the Badger Bounce Back Plan.
“As circumstances related to the virus change on the landscape, we’re then able to open up more parks and raise the capacity level,” Aquino says.
Bathrooms will be closed to avoid gathering and close quarters. Day passes are also unavailable to manage capacity issues.
“Individual day passes were the crux of the issue. You can’t manage 100 extra people coming in through a day pass system when, in fact, you already have carrying capacity issues,” Aquino says, “They not only lead to uncertainty as to how many people will be in the park – but the uncertainty of being able to get into the park after paying for it on that particular day.”
The six areas not reopening include state natural areas – designated to preserve natural resources in those places.
“The design of the development was intended to focus people in smaller parts of the property to protect the special resources,” Cole explains.
“Some of the parks in and of itself, because of how they’re laid out, don’t lend themselves towards social distancing. You have a lot of trails that are three feet wide with people passing each other,” Aquino says, “Public safety, infrastructure all play a part while some of those may remain closed until we’re fully open.”
Read the Governor’s order here
