Washington Hunter
Well-known member
Published March 31, 2007
Yellowstone's new proposal to allow snowmobiles
MATTHEW BROWN
By MATTHEW BROWN
LIVINGTON, Mont. - Snowmobiles would become a permanent winter fixture in Yellowstone National Park under a proposal released earlier this week that would allow up to 720 of the machines in the park daily.
That would continue interim rules in place for the past three winters, although actual snowmobile use never reached the cap and averaged about 250 machines per day.
The proposal, released Tuesday, represents a defeat for conservation groups and some former park employees who had sought an outright ban on snowmobiles in the park.
The National Park Service proposed such a ban in 2000, but it was never enacted due to a string of legal challenges. In the late 1990s, as many as 1,400 snowmobiles a day visited Yellowstone, contributing noise and air pollution that critics in Congress and elsewhere said was inappropriate for the country's first national park.
Park administrators said Tuesday that changing technologies in the snowmobile industry - particularly the introduction of quieter, less-polluting four-stroke engines - allowed them to back off a ban and still reduce pollution.
"It's a night and day change between the way it used to be and the way it is now," said John Sacklin of Yellowstone, who headed the team that drafted Tuesday's proposal.
But others argue that snowmobiles in any significant numbers degrade the park, and said visitors should be limited to bus-like snowcoaches. Denis Galvin, former deputy director of the National Park Service, said snowcoaches render snowmobiles as obsolete as stagecoaches and the Pony Express.
The new rules still face public review but are expected to be in place for the 2007-08 winter season.
Tuesday's proposal came out of an environmental study of winter activity in Yellowstone that considered options ranging from eliminating all motorized travel in the park to allowing 1,025 snowmobiles a day.
Yellowstone's new proposal to allow snowmobiles
MATTHEW BROWN
By MATTHEW BROWN
LIVINGTON, Mont. - Snowmobiles would become a permanent winter fixture in Yellowstone National Park under a proposal released earlier this week that would allow up to 720 of the machines in the park daily.
That would continue interim rules in place for the past three winters, although actual snowmobile use never reached the cap and averaged about 250 machines per day.
The proposal, released Tuesday, represents a defeat for conservation groups and some former park employees who had sought an outright ban on snowmobiles in the park.
The National Park Service proposed such a ban in 2000, but it was never enacted due to a string of legal challenges. In the late 1990s, as many as 1,400 snowmobiles a day visited Yellowstone, contributing noise and air pollution that critics in Congress and elsewhere said was inappropriate for the country's first national park.
Park administrators said Tuesday that changing technologies in the snowmobile industry - particularly the introduction of quieter, less-polluting four-stroke engines - allowed them to back off a ban and still reduce pollution.
"It's a night and day change between the way it used to be and the way it is now," said John Sacklin of Yellowstone, who headed the team that drafted Tuesday's proposal.
But others argue that snowmobiles in any significant numbers degrade the park, and said visitors should be limited to bus-like snowcoaches. Denis Galvin, former deputy director of the National Park Service, said snowcoaches render snowmobiles as obsolete as stagecoaches and the Pony Express.
The new rules still face public review but are expected to be in place for the 2007-08 winter season.
Tuesday's proposal came out of an environmental study of winter activity in Yellowstone that considered options ranging from eliminating all motorized travel in the park to allowing 1,025 snowmobiles a day.
