The federal government is threatening to take possession of several of California's most prominent state parks - including Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, the top of Mount Diablo and four miles of beaches at Fort Ord Dunes near Monterey - if Sacramento lawmakers close them to balance the budget.

That's the message from the National Park Service, which also has told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that California will be blocked from receiving future money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the leading federal source of funding for parks, if it closes state parks now.

The warnings came in a letter dated June 8 and obtained Tuesday by the Mercury News from Jon Jarvis, the Pacific regional director of the National Park Service, to Schwarzenegger.

In May, the governor proposed closing 220 state parks to save an estimated $143 million. The state is facing is $24 billion deficit.

With the warnings, the National Park Service has now waded into Sacramento's budget stalemate, arguing that California has more to lose if it closes state parks than it will gain in savings.

"We understand there is an economic crisis and cuts will be made in things. We are not unrealistic, " said David Siegenthaler, a National Park Service manager who helped draft the letter.

"But we think there must be ways to keep these parks open, even if it means with reduced hours and services. That's better than closing them."

Schwarzenegger

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