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Too Many People Crowding The Great Sights

Too Many People Crowding The Great Sights

ROME, Italy — On a recent June day, about 24,999 other tourists and I squeezed into the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. Seeing the Vatican and its museums is one of the most visually magnificent experiences on Earth. Clearly, the word has gotten out.

The chapel’s ceiling — where Michelangelo painted God sending the spark of life to Adam — remains unforgettable, but its splendor does not entirely block the distraction of sweating humanity pressing on you.

Hypertourism has degraded sightseeing’s five-star experiences. As the word suggests, hypertourism refers to the crush of transients into places built for more intimate encounters. And although the long lines and chaos surrounding such venues as the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Duomo in Florence are legendary, hypertourism is growing everywhere there’s a bucket-list site, including in America’s national parks.

The factors fueling the phenomenon are obvious. Not only are more people inhabiting the planet, but many more of them have the wherewithal to travel. Add to that cheaper airfares and easy online booking.

Hypertourism can endanger the sights themselves. The famous ruins at Peru’s Machu Picchu are under assault by the more than 2,500 visitors a day. The sacred Inca city doesn’t have the facilities to handle all that human waste.

At the Vatican, the crowds breathing out carbon dioxide and emitting body heat are so tough that they are threatening the glorious Renaissance frescoes that drew them in the first place. Vatican officials are trying to limit the damage through climate-control systems, but also by reducing the number of people coming through. The latter is a painful step for a holy place reaching out to all humanity.

In this country, anyone who visits Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park on a warm day knows that our national parks are not immune to the discomforts of hypertourism. The national parks have a lot of space, but they are also supposed to provide wilderness experiences. It can be hard to find solitude in a park that last year saw 3.4 million visitors — unless you’re prepared to hike far from the beaten track.

At Yellowstone National Park recently, a bison lying on the grass near Old Faithful Lodge and minding his (or her) own business was crowded by a group of tourists. An Australian man wielding an iPad-type device got into the bison’s face, and the animal butted him into the air reportedly several times. This was the second violent human-bison encounter at Yellowstone this year, and the summer has hardly begun.

One possible solution for crowded national parks is to create more of them. Another would be a strategy to discourage drive-through visitors, especially on the busiest days.

No one visits New York City for a wilderness experience — “wild” is another matter — but even in the land of hustle-bustle, the crowds are getting oppressive. Huge jets from every continent are now disgorging millions of summer tourists. Pedestrians have to walk into Fifth Avenue traffic to get around the throngs taking selfies and preparing Facebook posts in front of Tiffany’s flagship store.

The gorgeous Grand Central Terminal has rightly become a must-see on the New York tour, but it’s still a train station. Commuters now struggle to get around tourists commandeering staircases for group photos.

A reality check is in order. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art may seem jammed, but the nearly 6 million visitors it attracted last year equaled the number that packed into the Vatican Museums, a fifth its size.

Still, it’s undeniable that hypertourism has come to America. And its bags are unpacked.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: Art appreciation at The Louvre, Paris. (Sam Reisman/The National Memo)

Authorities Knew Of Weakness, But Could Not Shutdown Oil Pipeline In Yellowstone

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal inspectors found a problem in an oil pipeline a month before it ruptured in a Montana river, but it was not significant enough to force a shutdown, the government’s top pipeline regulator said Wednesday.

Cynthia Quarterman, administrator of the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, told a Senate committee that the problem in the Exxon Mobil pipeline was discovered in early June, nearly a month before the pipeline ruptured on July 1, spilling an estimated 42,000 gallons of crude into the Yellowstone River.

Quarterman declined to offer specifics about what she called an “anomaly” but said officials believed it was not significant enough to require repairs. It wasn’t clear whether the problem detected in June had any role in the rupture.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think that our pipeline inspector thought he had the authority to shut down the pipeline,” she told a Senate Environment subcommittee.

Agency officials said a review of pipeline records conducted in June revealed that the half-inch thick steel pipeline had about 20 percent external corrosion, based on inspections in 2004 and 2009. The review was part of a larger examination of pipeline records in response to high water flows throughout the Mountain West because of an unusually high spring snow melt.

The rupture in the 12-inch diameter pipeline, which had been buried below the riverbed, occurred as the Yellowstone River flooded following heavy rains. Debris, including trees, was floating in the river at the time of the accident.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he was disappointed in the federal response.

“To be honest, ma’am, it sounds like you’re not on top of this,” he told Quarterman.

Baucus also scolded Gary Pruessing, president of Exxon Mobil Pipeline Co, saying that the oil executive appeared to waver on initial promises to make land owners near the spill “whole” following the spill and cleanup.

The company takes full responsibility for the incident and the cleanup, “and we pledge to satisfy all legitimate claims,” Pruessing said.

Baucus said there was plenty of blame to go around.

“The company made a mistake. It was wrong about the integrity of the pipeline,” he said. The pipeline agency also was wrong, Baucus added: “It made a mistake about the integrity of the pipeline.”

The cause of the spill remains under investigation, but early signs indicate that the pipeline was completely severed in the accident, according to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. The findings suggest that the pipeline was undercut by the river and broke, rather than springing a leak due to corrosion in the line.

It will probably be August or September before water levels in the river are low enough to raise the section of damaged pipe responsible for the spill, Quarterman said.

It could take another two months after that before investigators identify a cause, and Quarterman said her agency won’t know for certain how large the leak was until it examines records at the oil company’s control room in Houston.

Officials in Laurel, Mont., near the site of the spill, raised questions last year about erosion along the riverbank threatening Exxon Mobil’s Silvertip pipeline. The company in December surveyed the pipe’s depth and said it was at least 5 to 8 feet beneath the riverbed.

The line was temporarily shut down in May after Laurel officials again raised concerns that it could be at risk as the Yellowstone started to rise. The company restarted the line a day later, following a review of its safety record.

“At the time this incident occurred, we did not have any outstanding issues from a regulatory standpoint on this pipeline,” Pruessing said.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.