The National Park Service is asking for comment on Kentucky's Mammoth Cave National Park proposal for fee increases.
The fee increase would go into effect in 2024 and includes proposed fees like the EV charging stations, which are level III chargers. The fee is proposed at 40 cents per kilowatt hour and an idle fee of 40 cents per minute that would begin 10 minutes after a vehicle’s battery has registered fully charged. In the educational tour category, the historic tours for school groups in K-12 would go down to $12, from $14, and tours for environmental education groups would increase to $10 from the current $6. The document also outlines fee changes for camp sites and various cave tours.
“Mammoth Cave utilizes its recreational fee program to focus on projects that improve the visitor experience," Superintendent Barclay Trimble said, according to the National Park Service website. "We have recently used the funds to replace deteriorated and unsafe benches and equipment at the park’s outdoor amphitheater, repaired handrails at the cave’s Historic Entrance that were damaged during a windstorm and funded cave guides for our busy summer season."
Comments will be accepted through July 28. Individuals can submit comments via the planning, environment and public comment website. People can also submit comment via U.S. mail, addressed to Mammoth Cave National Park, Attn: Proposed Fee Increase, P.O. Box 7, Mammoth Cave, KY 42259. Anonymous comments or those submitted via email will not be accepted.
The National Park website for Mammoth Cave National Park notes that before it was a national park, or even a tourist site, saltpeter was mined from Mammoth Cave. This happened in the 1800s, and after the end of the War of 1812, the mining stopped. The mine owners left behind the large vats and wooden pipes, and the cave has become a tourist attraction. Travelers came in 1816 to see the cave and there were guided tours of the mine.
There's plenty to see and explore in the park. Mammoth Cave National Park is more than 52,000 acres and has been a national park since 1941. The park includes a Historic Core Landscape Area that marks the spot where the original Mammoth Cave Hotel stood before it was burned in a 1916 fire; there you can also find remnants of the Mammoth Cave Railroad and interpretive exhibits. The area also includes a picnic space and woodland cottages that were completed in the late 1930s.
