WASHINGTON-
When tourists died in a boating accident in Grand Teton National Park last week, the park's public information officer, Joan Anzelmo, says she wasn't sure what to tell the media.
Anzelmo, who has worked at the Wyoming park for 11 years, usually would have released the names of the victims as soon as the families were notified. But recent park directives have complicated that process, leaving officers confused about whether they are allowed to provide such information.
She eventually released the names of three people who died, after consulting with national headquarters in Washington. But the identities of people injured or killed on public lands may soon be withheld under new polices the Park Service is considering.
Anzelmo says she will follow whatever guidelines the agency provides, but she believes it's best to release official information because it puts rumors and misinformation to rest.
"I would dread having to go from the professional cooperation that we have with members of the news media who are covering stories in the national parks to not providing information that has always served the park and the agency and the public," Anzelmo said.
The issue arose last year after the Salt Lake Tribune submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the names of victims of fatal accidents around Utah's Lake Powell. Darrell Strayhorn, a FOIA appeals officer in Washington, told the newspaper the names would not be released because of privacy issues.
"Disclosure of the decedent's names in connection with the details of the incidents that led to their demise could also open their living relatives up to harassment, unofficial questioning or unwanted public attention, thereby causing the living relatives of the decedents a great deal of emotional distress," Strayhorn wrote.
Soon afterward, the agency issued a memorandum telling regional park directors to withhold some personal information contained in motor vehicle accident reports.
Those two directives have caused confusion, said Elaine Sevy, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service in Washington. The agency's lawyers are reviewing the matter, she said, and they hope to have it resolved quickly.
"Whatever the solicitors decide is the law is what we have to implement," she said.
Charles Davis, executive director of the University of Missouri's National Freedom of Information Coalition, said the parks should release information about deaths and injuries just as local law enforcement does. Parents and tourists have the right to know the risks of traveling in certain places, he said.
"We have every right to know how and when and why people are perishing in what are supposed to be fun, safe places," he said. "That's how we identify problems in this country."
Glacier National Park in Montana already is refusing to give out the names of people who have died or been injured. Officials there would not release the names of a father and daughter who were mauled by a grizzly bear last summer, despite a Freedom of Information Act request by the Daily Inter Lake, a local paper based in Kalispell, Mont.
"We feel comfortable with what we've done here," said Dave Dahlen, chief of interpretation and education for the park. "The reporters are trying to do their job and we are trying to do ours, and that's a change for some."
Still, Dahlen says, they are hoping for more specific guidance from the national office.
Al Nash, spokesman for Yellowstone National Park, says he is struggling with how to balance respect for individuals and the public's right to know what happens on federal land. He says he has been vocal in asking the Interior Department to come to a resolution on the issue, not just for parks but for all public lands.
"We expect that we will not be releasing the names of many victims of accidents due to their privacy concerns," he says. "Most of us at the field level are anything but experts in these very complicated issues."
