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Conservation Fund Important

What do Grand Canyon National Park and the Benwood and Barnesville municipal swimming pools have in common? The federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. Both the national landmark and the local pools have benefited from LWCF funding.

Unless Congress acts soon, however, the LWCF may cease to function.

Like many government services, the fund must be reauthorized periodically. Money must be appropriated for it. With the current authorization set to expire Sunday, lawmakers have not acted to keep the LWCF in operation.

Most people have never heard of the fund. Local recreation officials, national park managers and conservationists throughout the nation have, however.

Established in 1965, the LWCF uses some of the revenue that flows to the government from offshore oil and gas drilling. It receives not a dime from taxpayers in general.

How important is the program? During about 40 years, it provided funding to 40,400 local and state recreation and conservation initiatives. No, that is not a typographical error.

West Virginia has received $241 million from the fund. Ohio has gotten $330 million.

As a letter to the editor writer noted earlier this month, the LWCF has helped many local recreational facilities. In West Virginia, the list includes Oglebay, Grand Vue and Brooke Hills parks. The program even helped build Benwood’s public swimming pool. Municipal parks in New Martinsville, Moundsville, Weirton and several other communities have been aided.

In Ohio, the fund helped out with $100,000 for Barnesville’s pool and has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into municipal parks in Morristown, Bergholz, Wintersville, Bridgeport and Dillonvale, just to name a few. Barkcamp State Park has benefited, too.

All that — and much more in every state of the union — has been accomplished by a government initiative that almost never receives as much money as authorized under the law. The LWCF, eligible for $900 million a year, has been given that much only once in its history.

With partisan politics more bitter and prevalent than most Americans can recall, members of Congress ought to be delighted at the opportunity to reauthorize the LWCF. It is a program that directly or indirectly benefits every American. It is one on which Democrats as well as Republicans can agree.

It is something the government does right. Members of Congress should ensure the LWCF is reauthorized — with an appropriation adequate to continue its important work.

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