Oregon parks to begin reopening this week

Video Credit: KDRV - Published
Oregon parks to begin reopening this week

Oregon parks to begin reopening this week

Governor Kate Brown announced the phased reopening today, though the list of open parks remains fairly short this week.

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Oregon parks to begin reopening this week

Today, governor brown announced some state parks could start to reopen limited facilities as early as this friday.

Chris hava with the oregon state parks system joins us now.

Thanks so much for being with us.

Alright, so what criteria do the parks have to meet to be one on the list that we'll reopen?

So we'll have limited access to state parks starting tomorrow on may 6th and we went through really three things that need to happen before a park can offer a limited experience to people.

And the first is the community around the park.

Needs to be ready for visits.

So we're working closely with our county and city partners to make sure we're not getting ahead of anybody.

And second, the health conditions have to be right.

So what special roles might we need in order to keep people safe?

And that's the things like maintaining a physical distance, wearing a face, covering, requiring, or asking people to bring their own supplies and gear for keeping themselves clean.

Bring all your food, all your water, your hand sanitizer, all those things, because restrooms won't always be op,ene lto offer limited access.

Andh nally, the thirdthing is tf pplies, eqpnt to keepaff and vog t there see any dramaticdifferes t there enforcing what youre jue r fewer staff on themhan wermlyy ke up the backbo.

Of theate par% of those folks are with us right now.

So it really is our permanent staff and the few seasonals that we had hired before we closed down in march who are ready to help out.

You will see fewer staff and there will be fewer services.

Uh, restaurants.

Um, if they're open at all, maybe won't be claimed as often as we normally would.

We're going to try and keep everything as spic and span as we can, but we do have limited staff and supplies, so in some cases we might have portable, um, facilities out where a permanent one would normally be open.

I'm not exactly sure what the conditions are going to be up at lost creek lake.

Um, but that, that's more of our statewide picture.

When you're looking at putting all of this together, when will folks see more of the parks open and how long does it take you to sort of onload those folks who need to be staffing those facilities?

Yeah, so the review of parks is going on constantly.

So starting next week, the week of may 11 we will have more parks that are offering limited access for visitors.

There'll be announced as they're ready.

And those three things that we do, talk to the community around the park, make sure the staff are prepared with equipment, training and gear, and that the health conditions are right for that park.

Um, uh, as that goes on, we'll be able to offer a more limited experience.

That really does depend on one other thing.

Uh, now that i think about it, and that's how this original, this initial set of limited openings goes.

Um, if we see good public cooperation that people aren't crowding.

Uh, that they're, that they're maintaining their discipline to care for each other and for themselves and protect their own health.

That'll make it easier for us to move forward and offer limited access at additional parks.

But if we see that we're having problems with congestion, with other health issues, we could reduce the rate of park openings or actually start closing parks.

So we really do need people to cooperate here and show us that, uh, that we can maintain these limited services.

Chris hava, oregon state parks.

Thanks very much.

Appreciate the information.

My pleasure.

Thank




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