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Yellowstone proposes snowmobile ban By JEFF TOLLEFSON Gazette Wyoming Bureau CODY – The days of snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park are numbered, according to a National Park Service proposal released Tuesday.
Citing pollution, noise and threats to human health, the Park Service’s preferred management alternative would allow snow coaches as the only form of motorized transport beginning in the winter 2003-2004. The phase-out would begin with a cap on daily snowmobile usage set to equal the park’s busiest day for visitors on snowmobiles. The cap would apply the next two winters, with a 50 percent reduction in the third year. That would give surrounding communities and park concessionaires three years to prepare for the first season in more than four decades when sleds won’t be motoring to Old Faithful from West Yellowstone, Mammoth and Cody, and back again. Environmental groups, including the National Parks Conservation Association and the Wilderness Society, praised the proposal. “People have sensed that something is wrong here,” said Jon Catton of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “I think that anyone who wants a beautiful and clean environment will cheer today’s announcement as a step in the right direction.” But the plan drew the ire of gateway communities and the snowmobile industry. “(The proposal) ignores many possibilities for cleaner snowmobiles and also ignores many challenges ... that will be posed by snow coaches,” said Paul Hoffman, executive director of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce. “It will more than likely have a disastrous effect on the east entrance.”
OppositionAlthough not required to do so, the agency will accept comments on the revised document through Oct. 31 before issuing its final decision in November.Wyoming Republican Sen. Craig Thomas sent a letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Tuesday asking for an extension, calling the optional comment period inadequate and threatening congressional action. After giving an indication earlier this year that snowmobiles would be banned, Western politicians and gateway communities quickly mobilized to fend off a decision they feel will severely hurt their winter economies perhaps even driving the town of West Yellowstone once again to shut down for the winter. “I remain solidly committed to addressing the issue of winter use in the parks by pressing for better management of the resources rather than abolishing access,” Thomas wrote. “A compromise is attainable if the (Clinton) administration would consider reasonable changes to snow machine numbers and look at new technologies that would limit impacts. I have not given up my desire to make that happen, and will use every regulatory and legislative solution to achieve that goal.” Representatives of Montana Gov. Marc Racicot and Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer declined to comment Tuesday afternoon. Environmentalists point out that people still have millions of acres of national forest land on which to snowmobile; Yellowstone National Park, they say, was created primarily to protect and to preserve natural resources, not to entertain people. Acknowledging that snowmobile users can go elsewhere near the park, Hoffman says the gateway communities’ principal selling point remains Yellowstone Park. Randy Roberson, owner of Yellowstone Vacations.com in West Yellowstone, Mont., agreed. He said local businesses estimate that 65 percent to 75 percent of their winter activity could disappear under the sled ban. “People come here to see the park,” he said. “They take advantage of the local trails while they are here, but the reason they come is because of Yellowstone.” Greater Yellowstone’s Catton said critics of a snowmobile ban often argue about economics and the difficulties of implementation, disregarding the science on snowmobile pollution cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Why aren’t they saying anything about that?” Catton asked. “Should we just let that persist so that people can keep snowmobiling?”
BackgroundThe preferred alternative is in sharp contrast to an earlier proposal to plow the road from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful. Nearly everybody was unhappy with that plan, including snowmobile users, politicians and the environmental groups that filed the initial lawsuit requiring the Park Service to study the effects of winter activities on wildlife and natural resources.Under previous preferred plan, other snowmobile trails would have remained open, and the Park Service would not have required snowmobiles to meet emission and noise standards until 2008. But EPA weighed in heavily last February, sharply criticizing each of the proposals within the draft EIS for failing to meet legal muster. EPA said the Park Service altogether ignored its own compelling evidence “that demonstrates significant environmental and human health impacts” from snowmobiles. The Park Service is mandated by federal law and executive order to give the highest level of environmental protection to Class I areas, including national parks and wilderness areas. Although EPA plans to set new emissions requirements as early as this year, it would take time for manufacturers to put those in place time the Park Service does not legally have, EPA said.
FeasibilitySnow coaches can be arranged from the Cody side, but the Cody chamber’s Hoffman says the mountainous terrain makes grooming difficult and service unpredictable. Although the reconstruction of the road over Sylvan Pass “in theory” will make grooming easier, he noted, “that’s still a high mountain.”West Yellowstone’s Roberson estimated it would take upward of 200 snow coaches to accommodate current snowmobile traffic about 75,000 visitors last year, largely through the west entrance. Noting the park’s commitment to maintaining visitor access, he said it would be a logistical nightmare trying to shuttle people through the gate. He said West Yellowstone does not have parking capacity for that many snow coaches. “It wouldn’t take very long to find out that the snow coach option is not going to work,” he said. Marsha Karle, spokeswoman for Yellowstone Park, affirmed that the park is not looking to limit access and does not believe its proposal is unfeasible. “We want to make sure that this works, and that’s the reason that we are working on the phase-in period,” Karle said. The plan also governs Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Parkway. Grand Teton spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo said the preferred alternative would make snow coaches the only motorized travel north of Colter Bay in Grand Teton through the Rockefeller Parkway and into Yellowstone. Comments should be postmarked by Oct. 31 and sent to Clifford Hawkes, National Park Service, 12795 W. Alameda Parkway, Lakewood, Colo. 80228; e-mail yell_winter_use@nps.gov. The full document will be made available at local libraries and on the Internet at http://www.nps.gov/planning.
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