This story first appeared at 891khol.org.
Yellowstone National Park received a $105 million donation from an energy infrastructure company this week.
The donation, from Blackstone portfolio company Tallgrass, is the largest financial gift in National Park Service history.
The company said around a third of the donation is intended to fund a new visitor center in the Norris Geyser Basin area, the third-most visited thermal area in the park, according to Steven Davidson, senior vice president of government affairs at Tallgrass.
The rest is earmarked to improve park access for Wyoming students, infrastructure, research and conservation, in what will be called the Tallgrass Wyld Yellowstone Initiative. But ultimately, the park is expected to get the final say in how to use the funds, Davidson said.
Former park staff and nonprofit partners said the money will go far after years of tight budgets, backlogged improvements and widespread staff cuts.
“This gift is going to support science and conservation, education, stewardship, and infrastructure that helps millions of visitors connect with the extraordinary landscape,” said Lisa Diekmann, president and CEO of the park’s nonprofit partner, Yellowstone Forever.
She said the gift has been in the works since last summer after a company leader visited the park. Tallgrass confirmed that was Sean Klimczak, Blackstone’s global head of infrastructure, at one of the world’s largest asset management companies.
“Yellowstone is one of America’s great natural treasures, and we feel a profound sense of responsibility to protect it for future generations,” Klimczak said in Yellowstone’s press release. “This historic gift reflects our belief that infrastructure investment can and should be a force for good, helping us invest in Yellowstone’s future and the growth of the communities that surround it.”
Skeptics took to the park’s social media, pointing out Tallgrass’ pipelines and data center projects across the state as a contradiction to the conservation-focused donation.
Tallgrass operates thousands of miles of pipelines across the country, with about a third running through Wyoming. The company is also building an AI generation hub that will power Google’s large-scale data center campus in Cheyenne.
But former park superintendent Dan Wenk said parks have long benefitted from philanthropy with altruistic intentions.
“It’s a very generous donation,” Wenk, who ran Yellowstone from 2011 to 2019, said. “It certainly exceeds, by many times, the largest previous donations to Yellowstone National Park.”
Parks have faced tight budgets, backlogged improvements and widespread staff cuts in recent years, so the dollars will go far, Wenk said. He trusts the federal process that regulates and vets donations beforehand.
“A quid pro quo is something that the National Park Service really does not accept donations for,” Wenk said, adding that parks can’t name buildings after donors.
Davidson said his company isn’t looking for good publicity.
Instead, he said the donation “best demonstrates the company’s environmental credentials,” noting that Tallgrass sold its oil business last month for $2.5 billion to a Canadian company.
“We talk a lot about how energy from Wyoming should create opportunities for Wyoming,” Davidson said. “This is just a testament to that.”
The donation comes as private interests gain traction at various national parks in recent months, including a possible private road into Yosemite.
But projects such as a new visitor center will still go through an “absolutely rigorous regulatory review,” Davidson said. Any new construction in national parks requires a federal environmental review process first.
From here, the company said it will have “no involvement” in how the park uses the funds.
“They know what we’ve given the dollars for,” Davidson said. “They have a very capable board and leadership team and it’s their responsibility to go out and put the funds to use.”
The last time Yellowstone completed a new visitor center was in 2010, according to Diekmann, with the Old Faithful Education Center. Before that, the Canyon Visitor Education Center was built in 2006.
Currently, a small log cabin at the Norris Geyser Basin provides a small park ranger museum in the area with a high concentration of geothermal activity. Wenk said the space is “inadequate” and a concern for the park service.