Administration Hits New Low in Snowmobile Dispute
The Bush Administration is proposing to allow 720 snowmachines per day into Yellowstone National Park, more than double the number that roared into the park last winter. The proposal ignores new reports from the Park Service that even last winter's much lower entrance numbers exceeded standards to protect visitors' enjoyment of winter quiet and natural sounds. The administration's solution? Change the standards!

In July, we asked you to weigh in with the National Park Service as it decided which issues to examine in a new environmental assessment on Yellowstone winter use. Now the assessment is out in draft form. We need your help again. The new scheme does nothing to ease snowmobile damage in the park. The agency concedes as much. Please join us and more than 300 retired, non-political career employees of the National Park Service to demand that the Bush Administration do better in Yellowstone.

The deadline for comments is Monday, September 20, 2004. You can send that message immediately from
http://ga1.org/campaign/yellowstone2/wd8ks5x498w53n

Photo above: Snowmobiles at west entrance of Yellowstone National Park, WY. Photo courtesy of David Long. Below: Bison forced by snowmobilers to expend precious winter energy reserves in Yellowstone National Park. Photo courtesy of Jeff Henry.

Snowmobiles in Yellowstone: Playing Politics With our Parks
In late 2000, the National Park Service (NPS) announced it would replace damaging snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks with park-friendly, multi-passenger snowcoaches. The decision followed decades of scientific study and three years of enthusiastic public involvement. The Environmental Protection Agency supported the NPS conclusion that the only way to protect the parks and follow the law was to phase out snowmobiles.

Now, after four years, two administrations, two additional scientific studies, more than $3 million and over half a million public comments, the conclusion remains unchanged: the only way to protect these parks and the health and safety of those who work in and visit them is to phase out snowmobiles. Unfortunately, the snowmobile industry and the politicians have decided that snowmobile use should continue in the parks, never mind science and public opinion.

Legal-Political Shuttlecock
The Wilderness Society and its allies have been working to defend Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks through administrative and judicial action. Last fall, in response to our pleadings, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ordered the administration to implement the original decision and begin the phaseout. You can guess what happened next: the industry headed back to court and convinced another federal judge to take a contrary position.

In response, the administration began yet another environmental assessment of the issue last spring. The results, not surprisingly, are the same: phasing out snowmobiles and replacing them with mass-transit snowcoaches best protects Yellowstone and its visitors. Unfortunately the newly-proposed decision is also unchanged: keep polluting snowmobiles in the park.

The Science Remains Unchanged
Continuing snowmobile use in Yellowstone will undercut America's long-standing commitment to protect its national parks. The administration's proposal to allow 720 snowmobiles a day in Yellowstone rejects the essence of the National Park Service's mission: to protect our parks for the safe enjoyment of all Americans and to pass them on, unimpaired, to future generations.

In the just-published environmental assessment, the agency itself warns the latest proposal will have these consequences:

- VISITOR AND EMPLOYEE HEALTH: "Exposure to toxic air pollutants, such as benzene and toluene, would remain a concern."

- NOISE: "Employees and visitors may choose to wear hearing protection to mitigate these impacts."

- WILDLIFE: "Minimizing human disturbance and harassment of wildlife is not expected to be accomplished."

Despite repeated such warnings from its own professionals, the administration's policy toward Yellowstone has been stubbornly ideological: snowmobiles must be allowed into the National Park. The latest proposal follows that pattern.

There Is a Better Way!
And it isn't rocket science. It is plain old, common sense natural science. While that science may be inconvenient for the administration, it is also irrefutable. The National Park Service's analyses have three times confirmed that providing visitors access by snowcoaches instead of snowmobiles ensures our opportunity to see the winter beauty of Yellowstone and Grand Teton without compromising the quality or safety of others' experience, and without inflicting damage on two of America's most-loved National Parks.

The latest proposal is so egregious that over 300 retired non-political career employees of the National Park Service have come together to demand that their former agency do better in Yellowstone.

How You Can Help: Send your comments to the Park Service today!
The flood of public concern on this issue has saved Yellowstone from policies that would have been even more harmful. It has kept national park advocates in Congress and scores of major newspapers across the country vigilant to this watershed decision for the National Park System. Please join 300 retired park professionals and us to tell the administration that it is out of touch with Americans like you who believe that we shouldn't have to wear ear plugs and gas masks to enjoy the winter magic of our first national park. It is time to phase-out snowmobiles from Yellowstone, not more than double their numbers.

The deadline for comments is Monday, September 20, 2004. You can take immediate action from
http://ga1.org/campaign/yellowstone2/wd8ks5x498w53n

If you'd rather write your own letter, and we hope you will consider it, we've provided contact information and a sample letter from which you can draw the major points.

Contact Information
Superintendent Suzanne Lewis
Superintendent Mary Gibson Scott
Temporary Winter Use Plans EA
P.O. Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190
Web comment site:
http://home.nwindenv.com/YNP_Comments4/
(No email available for submitting comments)

Words to Heed
"If the Administration goes through with this, it will mark a new low in its pattern of ignoring science to benefit a special interest at the public's expense. Boxed in by its own first study, the Administration is now using a superficial process to sweep under the rug what 10 years of science have demonstrated conclusively is best for our nation's first national park and the health and safety of its visitors."
--Michael Finley, former Superintendent of Yellowstone and Everglades National Parks

Sample Letter

Dear Superintendents Lewis and Scott:

The treasures of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks belong to all Americans. I urge you not to weaken protective standards in the park to accommodate the industry but to begin the phaseout of snowmobiles that will protect the park, its employees and its visitors.

In three separate analyses, your agency has determined that continued snowmobile use threatens park resources, visitors' healthy enjoyment of the parks, and employee health and safety. Each study pointed to the solution: end snowmobile use and expand snowcoach use.

It is your statutory obligation to choose the safer, more protective option for winter access and Alternative 1 in the August 2004 Environmental Assessment provides it. But you have rejected it in favor of continued snowmobile use, the consequences of which, as you have conceded, include worrisome exposure of visitors and employees to cancer-causing chemicals. You acknowledge wildlife disturbance is likely to continue despite your legal duty to ensure that it does not.

While law and management policy oblige you to manage our common heritage on behalf of all visitors, you are inverting the guiding ethic of our national parks to favor one use and one set of users. That ignores your own verified scientific conclusions and dismisses the public opinion you have sought on so many occasions.

Whether this choice is being forced on the National Park Service from a political level or represents a tragic failure of leadership within the agency itself, I do not know. Either way, it places the snowmobile industry's interests above the public interest and sets a dangerous precedent for our National Park System.

I urge you not to weaken standards in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Instead, please implement Alternative 1 and immediately begin the transition to snowcoaches.

Sincerely,
(Your name and address)