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Federal Judge Blocks Recreational Snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park

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Will there be recreational snowmobiling in Yellowstone this winter? NPS photo.

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

Frank C. summed up his edict ...

"People should see parks while they are young and capable."

Deciding that some people are worthy, and that others are not, is a role the more fortunate among us decline. However, to act upon such a decision, one must be a leader, and to be a leader one must run for office and win at the ballot-box. That's tougher duty than the prison you couldn't handle, Frank.

... he sets snowmobiles up as a straw-man:

"... I doubt anyone who can't hike Yellowstone is going to be racing at 70 miles per hour down a snowmobile trail."
  • In truth, older, softer & pudgier folks speak of their snowmachine in the soft cadence of surprised lovers. You're just not listening, Frank.
  • Happy old snowmobile users in the Park (and often outside it too) drive & ride slowly, quietly and yes, considerately. They have no fiendish intent, or character. You're seeing things, Frank.

... and he soft-peddles the charges:

"Abbey, an anarchocaplitalist?, inspired people fed up with corporatism (government and corporate collusion) ravaging wilderness to make a stand.
...
But we might not have radical environmentalism if our corrupt, small-f fascist government (read: corporatist) didn't pillage wilderness for the benefit of a select few."

It's not "radical environmentalism" "inspired" "to make a stand". It's amateurish guerrilla/civil warfare, using arson, firebombs, and terror. It's contributing to the criminal delinquency of the weak & addle-brained, to commit social suicide in a fit of petulant pique falsely represented to them as heroism.

Ed Abbey not-so-coyly promoted terrorism as a way to protect nature. But Edward himself knew better - knew that in truth such acts are capable of yielding no such benefit. But he had a sufficiently poor grip on his principles to incite others to sacrifice themselves pointlessly as proxies for his own disgruntled bitterness.


Good evening--

I concur with the posts that say that snomos have no place in Yellowstone or Grand Teton. And, I really don't believe it is a question of access. You will remember that the original winter use plan called for a two-year phase out of snowmobiles to be replaced by snow coaches, a much more environmentally-friendly form of access. The two-year phase out was proposed to give the snowmobile dealers around the park some time to make the kind of business decisions they would need to make. Older people, families, people with disabilities, or those who don't have the time or energy to ski or snowshoe into the park can ride on these snowcoaches. They cause less pollution, make less noise, carry more people, and are, in my opinion, a viable option to the snowmobiles.

No doubt the park will devise an emergency rule to get by this winter, but let's hope they pay more attention in the next round of rule-making to what their own scientists are saying to them and less to the political agendas that they appear to have followed for the last 7 years.

Rick Smith


This thread is getting really good. Many points to ponder written here.

Terrorism, attached to any cause, is never the answer. It will only breed hatred for the cause and the people associated with it. It is also immoral, as well as illegal. Reprisals from the opposition will surely ensue if this is allowed to escalate.

I think it is rather elitist to say that you must visit these areas at a certain age. Sure, there are those folks out there who beat the odds and stay very fit past retirement age, but they are the exception rather than the rule. I also am not advocating the creation of new roads, etc. for any reason. However, I am against road removal and severe limitations to existing access unless there are sound scientific reasons supporting these actions. Soft science of the heart does not apply, in my opinion.

Many of you have mentioned "Snow Coaches" as an alternative for access. A quick search on Google gave me my first look at these machines. Kind of a van-meets-snowcat arrangement. Quite impressive! Please help this East Coaster to understand the differences in use/access for the 2 types of machines in question here. Are the snowcoaches allowed on the same/similar terrain as snowmobiles? I would imagine simple size differences between the two would keep the coaches on wider trails and flatter terrain. Do they go high over passes and such?

I would agree that these would be a completely viable alternative vs. snowmobiles for access for those not able to hike in. However, will these systems suffer the same fate as snowmobiles, and be banned in the future for the very same reasons? A similar situation is under way in CHNSRA, where Jet Skis were first banned in 1999, and the push to ban vehicles began in 2008. The gates have been opened, and the final outcome has yet to be determined. This may be the beginning of the same for Yellowstone.


One big problem I have with snow coaches (and I'm no fan of snowmobiles) is access. Both modes of transportation are expensive and shut out a great many people. The biggest advantage of snowmobiles over snow coaches - as far as I can see - is that the snow coach choice in the park is monopolized, perpetuating the age old government / corporate rule over the park. So, while they provide access for all kinds of people who might not otherwise see the park in winter, the "all kinds" are almost entirely rich or upper middle class people. And, while Yellowstone, by its very distant nature tends to exclude many demographically poor people from being able to see it (except for poor people without families and with summers largely open), there is never any reason to exacerbate the problem. If snow coaches were publicly owned and free-to-use vehicles, or if there were some kind of progressive scale of cost, or on and on ... it wouldn't be so bad to me. But, as is, eliminating snowmobiles (a vehicle that depends upon some privilege but at least allows for some possibility of avoiding cost) without addressing the access issues involved with snow coaches removes one problem while creating another.

Others have suggested plowing all or most Yellowstone roads and allowing cars. I'm not sure I'm for that one, either. Others suggest just leaving the park more or less closed and leaving it to those who can get in on snowshoes and skies. I don't really have an answer, just that the considerations are more than environmental versus mode of enjoyment but that they must also consider the public nature of the park and the economic class disparities that also exist in our society.

And, of course, they need to consider the effect on wildlife. Evidence is mixed on the effect of groomed roads on wildlife migration. With bison leaving the park - often along these roads - to almost certain death, it does no good to continue the debate on these grounds without considering the implications to bison policy. That has to be part of the discussion as well. However, in some way that might be negligible, because bison eventually will find ways to leave the park to better grazing grounds. What bothers me is what I've personally witnessed in the north of the park, where the policy to keep roads open is followed so zealously at times that snow plows have hazed bison off roads within the park just to clear the roads. The bison are forced into full gallops and then get panicked, trip in the snow, hurt themselves, and put visitors in danger. Does grooming roads put unnecessary stress on animals? What will be done to make sure that doesn't happen?

So, for me, economic class, remembering the land and the wildlife as equal considerations in the process, and of course noise and air quality, all fit into it. Aesthetically, I'd prefer to see skis and snowshoes; however, if we can, where we can, we should find other ways of access, so long as we consider fairness. If fairness becomes too costly, then it's generally not worth doing at all. So, if a clean snowmobile is either a fiction or just costs too much to do in a way that allows a wide variety of people from different classes to use them, then I don't want them. That goes for snow coaches - as it stands, I don't want them, either, for anyone - until access to them is fair. If a middle class person like me isn't willing to spend the money for my family to take one, I know it's downright impossible for many other people.

One other note - I read a lot by politicians about the parks being for "benefit and enjoyment of the people" and that environmentalists forget that. There is a fallacy lurking. The mode of enjoyment cannot be abstracted to mean that enjoyment cannot be had. One way of enjoying being denied does not rid people of enjoyment. If enjoyment can only be had by destroying a place, then the Organic Act is simply nonsensical. There is no inherent right to the mode of enjoyment or for people to be able to make a living providing means that are destructive to the purpose of a place. The question isn't rights and what the people deserve, but what we should be doing. Anyhow, that aside helps me to think about things differently and may be a useful way to re-frame all our ethical quandaries.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World


"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."
Although I don't necessarily agree with the total elimination of vehicles from Yellowstone, the idea isn't automatically without merit. Let's face it, 90% of Yellowstone ALREADY is inaccessible except by horseback or foot; and many of these areas contain national treasures that are as great or greater than those visible from the road. So it is in most National Parks. Shall we build roads to every mountain top? To every canyon bottom? To every Alpine meadow or pristine lake? Along the spine of the Sierra Nevada's? Aren't all citizens entitled to see these wonders? I am financially handicapped. I would love to go to Hawaii, but I can't afford it. Shouldn't someone buy me a ticket? There are always going to be places we would like to visit but cannot. I am never going to climb El Capitan in Yosemite, because I am not physically capable. I am never going to vacation in Hawaii, because I am not financially capable. Even the very old, the very young and the handicapped can ride on horseback or in a horse drawn carriage. They did for thousands of years. Whenever I think of all the places I would like to visit, all the mountains I would like to climb, I ask myself if I have seen all that I CAN? Have I driven every back road in Montana, for example. The answer, of course, is no. It wound take several lifetimes for me to do so. Have I visited every state park, snowmobiled every forest trail in the millions of acres of National Forest open to that activity? Soon I realize that there is too much that I CAN do to worry about what I can't.
Our National Parks were never intended to be substitutes for Disneyland. They were, and are, intended to preserve unimpaired for future generations, a slice of what America was...sometimes before it was even America. When study after study shows that allowing snowmobiles is not in the best interests of doing that; and survey after survey shows that the majority of Americans feel that snowmobiles should be banned (and, yes, Yellowstone is owned by ALL Americans; not just those living within a hundred miles of her borders), then why are we even having this conversation??
Snowmobiles should be banned. Once and for all, and permanently. Period.
In the summer, a quota system should be set up allowing only a certain number of private vehicles in the park each day; and when that quota has been met, further visitors (on that day) would be limited to foot, horseback or tour (shuttle) bus. It would be better for the wildlife, it would be better for the air quality, it would be better for each individual park visitor's experience AND it would go a long way toward actually accomplishing the mission of the Park Service.


@dapster: Both snow mobiles and snow coaches are only allowed in Yellowstone NP on roads - or to be precise where roads are under the snow. And coaches have much less impact per passenger.

@Jim: You can run you own snow mobile, but you can only go with a licensed guide - there is no unguided snow mobiling in the park - so if you take a licensed coach or hire a licensed guide does not that much of a difference. Frankly - if anyone wishes to get the feeling of freedom on a beautiful winter day by running a snow mobile through the landscape: Go to a National forest, Yellowstone NP never was a place where this was possible.


Frank C.,

Road building? Who's talking about road building? Well ... you, mainly.

Snowmobiles don't need roads, remember?

You consistently caricaturize "access" in ways that are not real, not happening, and not a threat.

You should actually read the National Parks Organic Act of 1916, posted on the National Park Service website. It shows that there is plenty of room within the law for both access and usage of our National Parks. It's short, but may be a jarring read.


Frank raises an intriguing prospect, that of revising/updating the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916.

His suggestion particularly struck me today as earlier I was listening to an NPR show about the presidential nominees and the U.S. Constitution and whether it is a static or living document, whether it should be strictly interpreted in the context it was set down in, or whether future generations should be allowed to interpret its provisions in consideration of present-day circumstances.

Much has changed since the Organic Act was written 92 years ago, and while Congress reaffirmed its key provisions via the Redwoods Act of 1978, it easily can be argued that revising the Act to take into consideration evolution of both the National Park System and societal views of natural resources would not be a bad idea.

But where would you start? Should each application of "conservation" be replaced with "preservation" in the Act? Should the sections Ted referred to earlier regarding livestock grazing and logging be struck? While it's already clear that the Organic Act places preservation of park resources above enjoyment of those resources, does that section need to be clarified or strengthened?

How far would you go with a revision?


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