A federal judge, ruling that Yellowstone National Park's decision to continue recreational snowmobile use in the park runs counter to science and the National Park Service's conservation mission, has tossed out the park's winter-use plan.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's ruling, while sure to spur more legal battles, throws in doubt whether there will be recreational snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks when the winter season gets under way in mid-December.
"We've got to figure out what it means. We don't know where we go from here," Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said this afternoon. "The judge was very clear that he took issue with some of our analysis and decision-making. It's up to our winter-use planning staff and Justice Department attorneys to study this so we know how to move forward."
In his 63-page ruling, which was stinging at times in its criticism of the Park Service's interpretation of its own Organic Act, Judge Sullivan held that while the Organic Act does call for public enjoyment of the national parks, "(T)his is not blanket permission to have fun in the parks in any way the NPS sees fit."
"As plaintiffs articulated at the hearing, the 'enjoyment' referenced in the Organic Act is not enjoyment for its own sake, or even enjoyment of the parks generally, but rather the enjoyment of 'the scenery and natural and historic objects and wild life' in the parks in a manner that will allow future generations to enjoy them as well," wrote Judge Sullivan in today's ruling. "NPS cannot circumvent this limitation through conclusory declarations that certain adverse impacts are acceptable, without explaining why those impacts are necessary and appropriate to fulfill the purposes of the park."
The winter-use plan was challenged by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, the Winter Wildlands Alliance, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“This ruling reaffirms the idea at the heart of our National Park System—that the duty of Yellowstone’s managers is to preserve the park for the sake of all visitors, and to place the highest value on protection of Yellowstone’s unique natural treasures,” said Tim Stevens, senior Yellowstone Program Manager for NPCA.
“This ruling will ensure that visitors are not disappointed by air and noise pollution when they make the one winter trip to Yellowstone of their lives,” said Amy McNamara, National Parks Program Director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “We take our hats off to the tour businesses that didn’t wait for this ruling. Their increasing investments in modern snowcoaches are already making it possible for winter visitors to access and enjoy Yellowstone while protecting it.”
At the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, leaders were calling for Yellowstone and National Park Service officials to accept the judge's ruling and work harder to protect the parks' resources.
"They should be quietly praising this whole thing instead of continuing to obfuscate the whole question in my judgment," said Bill Wade, who chairs the coalition's executive council. "It should be very clear where they go from here.”
Mr. Wade said Yellowstone Superintendent Suzanne Lewis should have the authority to pass an emergency rule to allow a limited amount of snowmobiling in the park this year while her staff moves to develop a winter-use plan in line with Judge Sullivan's ruling.
That said, the coalition believes snowcoaches -- not snowmobiles -- should transport winter visitors in Yellowstone because the coaches are safe, quieter, less polluting, and less impacting to wildlife than snowmobiles.
During the past 11 years the Yellowstone snowmobiling saga has seesawed back and forth. While the Clinton administration on its way out of office issued a directive that snowmobile use be phased out of the park, the Bush administration immediately stayed that when it took office.
A series of legal challenges -- some by conservation groups, some by snowmobile advocates such as the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association -- alternately pulled the Park Service in opposite directions. The latest decision came last November, when Yellowstone officials approved a plan to allow up to 540 snowmobiles and 83 snowcoaches per day into the park -- despite research that concluded such levels would impact park resources.
When the coalition of conservation groups announced its legal challenge to the plan, it noted that the Park Service disclosed in a study accompanying its decision that allowing 540 snowmobiles into Yellowstone each day would dramatically expand to 63 square miles-the portion of the park where visitors could expect to hear snowmobile noise during more than half of the visiting day. That would be a three-fold increase from the current portion of the park where noise intrudes on the visitor’s experience during at least half the day.
The groups also noted that in its Final Environmental Impact Study accompanying its decision, the Park Service acknowledged that Congress established the National Park Service in 1916 in part due to a recognition that the American people “wanted places to go that were undisturbed and natural and which offered a retreat from the rigors and stresses of everyday life.”
Judge Sullivan found more than a few problems with the National Park Service's conclusions in approving the winter-use plan (WUP). Among them:
* The court finds that NPS fails to articulate why the WUP's impacts are 'acceptable.' NPS simply repeats the above standards in the context of the WUP's impacts on soundscapes, wildlife, and air quality, but fails to provide any supporting analysis of how the impacts relate to those standards.
* The ROD (record of decision) makes no effort to explain, for example, why impacts on soundscapes characterized as 'major and adverse' do not 'unreasonably interfere with the soundscape' and cause an unacceptable impact.
* Similarly, NPS fails to explain why increasing the amount of benzene and formaldehyde to levels that broach (and sometimes exceed) the minimum risk levels applicable to hazardous waste sites does not 'create an unsafe or unhealthful environment for visitors or employees.'
* ... NPS provides no quantitative standard or qualitative analysis to support its conclusions that the adverse impacts of the WUP are 'acceptable.'
* As with soundscapes and wildlife, the court finds that NPS has failed to articulate why a plan that will admittedly worsen air quality complies with the conservation mandate.
In his conclusion, Judge Sullivan found that the winter-use plan "clearly elevates use over conservation of park resources and values and fails to articulate why the plan's 'major adverse impacts' are 'necessary and appropriate to fulfill the purposes of the park."
"NPS fails to explain how increasing snowmobile usage over current conditions, where adaptive management thresholds are already being exceeded, complies with the conservation mandate of the Organic Act," he wrote.
While this ruling was being digested today, Yellowstone's winter-use planners were joined by Department of Justice attorneys in Cheyenne, Wyoming, before U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer. Judge Brimmer, who in the past has ruled almost completely opposite Judge Sullivan on the snowmobile issue, was conducting a hearing into a lawsuit brought by the state of Wyoming and Park County, Wyoming, over the winter-use plan's 540-snowmobile-per-day limit as well as its requirement that snowmobilers be led by commercial guides.
Comments
Anons I & II,
And by the lobbying of the park users who use said machines to access the park areas that they prefer. Again, please note that NPS rangers also employ the same mode of transportation in the fulfillment of their duties. Look, I’m all for a viable replacement to the IC engine, but unless you’ve got one in your back pocket you’re not telling us about, then we’re stuck burning gas for a while yet to come.
Mr. Clayton so eloquently handled the latter part of this post, so I’ll take the former. Vehicles in the parks, also used by NPS personnel, are absolutely necessary to the safety and upkeep of the park. As far as I know, all vehicles are bound by some level of emissions controls mandated by either Fed or local laws, sometimes both. Some parks are so large that a foot-bound NPS simply could not manage it in this manner. I’m sorry, but I do not share the guilt that some do over burning fossil fuels in the best means of personal transportation that mankind has produced to date. I also refuse to step back in time and harness either equine or wind power to travel.
I used to run a horse stables facility with 20+ animals counting both horses and ponies. We gave either ½ hour or 1-hour trail rides through the Virginia woods every weekend during the warm months. We literally had to clean the trails of dung periodically during peak season as the trail would become clogged with it. Just imagine thousands of visitors on the backs of thousands of animals and the mess it would cause.
This business went under due to the high cost of insuring the riders against injury. Do you think the NPS would enter into such a high risk venture? Doubtful.
Also, we haven’t even broached the subject of the access for the disabled. Do we dare want yet another branch of government, (The DOJ this time), and the ADA folks involved in this? Hiking trails up the sides of mountains with wheelchair ramps their entire length, anyone? Sidewalks everywhere?
Well regulated, reasonable, low-impact motorized access can certainly become a reality, if both sides are willing to give a little. Lawsuits just bring yet more lawsuits.
dapster belled the cat:
Seriously, this is it - the basic reality.
Much, likely a majority of the population is incapable of accessing our Natural Wonders, on foot.
Yet that is the appeal-of-choice of the 'mystical solitude' contingent. "The presence of snowmobiles ruins my wilderness-experience. Let them walk."
"Oh, let them eat cake." "Marie, they'll have your head." "Nonsense: It's wilderness - they can walk like the animals, be limited to the level of animals. Make it so, Jeeves."
Somebody took a wrong turn on the road to the future, thinking it will exclude or ignore those who do not meet a certain standard of physical robustness & endurance. Yes ... cake was a nutritious & healthful commodity-byproduct of the bread-baking industry, and national enshrinement of Teutonic ideals energized late-1930s Germany ... but note that the lowly & homely won the day, hard & fast.
The snobbery & elitism of "Let them walk" is self-defeating.
Ed Abbey's dead, so someone has to play that part. While I don't wholly agree with them, his rants on this subject are classic and entertaining.
Belling cats. It's what I do....
I have both a two year old son and a 73-year old father. I simply cannot ask them to make the same treks that I am capable of. Does that mean that they should be excluded from viewing our national treasures simply because of the limitations placed upon them due to their age? I think not.
One day, we shall all be old, if we are lucky enough. Those of you who are hale and hearty at this moment in time may find yourselves on the other side of the fence one day, looking in longingly.
The other side of a fence that you helped to construct.
Kirky Adams,
I'll bite. Let's have a quick look at Ed Abbey.
Favorite quote:
Among the problems bedeviling environmentalism, eco-terrorism easily strikes me as the most discrediting.
And when I am old I shall take to the over abundance of roads and nature trails that Our National Parks provide me, all the while holding to heart Our National Parks doctrine of Protection and Preservation for Our Future Generations.
Thanks to roads and ease of access, most of the iconic national treasures, both natural and artificial, can be enjoyed by your father and son. However, there are vast areas of wilderness with stunning sights that they cannot see. No roads go to these places and no vehicles are permitted. Should we remove any restrictions and build roads there? I would propose most of our parks are big enough to accommodate those who need a sight at the end of a road and those, like me, that need sights far from the end of the road.
Indeed I shall. There will be a day that I can't get across the river and up the Queets Valley in Olympic like I do today. I just hope to God they don't build me a road to get there. There's something to be said for aging gracefully, accepting the onset of limitations, and continuing to love the wonders of wilderness just because they exist - whether you can see them or not. I look longingly now, at 35 years old, at those who climb 8,000 meter peaks and circumnavigate arctic islands in kayaks. I live vicariously via the magic of words and photographs. I harbor no bitterness that these things aren't accessible to me due to physical, emotional, or financial limitations.
Yes, some of us would help construct fences. But I assure you that some of us build them for far more than personal desire of the here-and-now. You won't hear a peep from us when we find ourselves fenced out. I call myself a lover and defender of nature. I would be a hypocrite to propose the rules be changed when the painfully natural processes of age and infirmity confine me to my books, leaving the forest to the next generation.
-Kirby.....Lansing, MI
Well, Frank, I guess that's kinda, sorta what I was saying too. :-) But, expressing it like that usually doesn't endear one to your opinion. Quite the opposite, actually. Like I was saying, we all play different parts in these discussions.
-Kirby.....Lansing, MI