Snowmobiles in Yellowstone: Latest version of winter-use plan unveiled

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

Continuing to allow snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park isn't the best thing for the park's environment, but it's the plan the agency likes anyway, National Park Service officials said Thursday as they unveiled a new winter-use plan.

An earlier plan, unveiled in November 2000, called for phasing out all recreational snowmobiles. That is the "environmentally preferred alternative," said John Sacklin, Yellowstone's chief planner.

The government isn't pushing that one any more.

It now endorses a plan, developed during the Bush administration, that it calls the "agency-preferred alternative." It allows for limited numbers of cleaner, quieter snowmobiles.

"The effects are slightly greater," Yellowstone Superintendent Suzanne Lewis said of the new plan. She and other officials from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park spoke to reporters in a telephone press conference Thursday.

A final environmental impact statement says those effects could include haze at Old Faithful, noise and enough air pollution that some entrance station employees might have to wear respirators.

Also, some visitors with health problems stand a slight chance of becoming sick from the fumes.

Still, the plan is a big improvement over current conditions. Hydrocarbon emissions will drop by 90 percent, the EIS says, and carbon monoxide will fall by 70 percent.

Snowmobile backers point to those numbers, while opponents note that, without snowmobiles, the numbers would drop even further. Yellowstone deserves such protection, the opponents say.

Whether the park itself will be damaged under the new plan remains to be seen, Lewis said. It calls for monitoring the park's air and, depending on results, cutting back on snowmobiling or possibly increasing it.

Meanwhile, people still get to tour the park on snowmobiles.

"It's about protecting the park resources while allowing for public use at the same time," Lewis said.

Park Service Regional Director Karen Wade is scheduled to sign the plan in 30 days. Lewis said she expects no major changes by then.

Whether it will hold up remains to be seen.

Congress could jump into the act. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday he will introduce legislation banning all recreational snowmobiling from the parks.

"The administration's own science, hundreds of thousands of Americans, and their own employees told them that snowmobiles should be phased out," Reid said. "Today the administration ignored it all ... and put forward a plan to pollute Yellowstone."

Lewis, asked if she had felt political pressure to keep snowmobiles in the park, said only that she has spent her one year on the job talking to all sorts of interest groups about the "very complex and controversial situation."

The new EIS, which cost $2.4 million, results from the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the state of Wyoming and the snowmobile industry to halt the phaseout.

"We are grateful that the Bush administration has given this issue a closer look," said Clark Collins, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a motorized group.

Of the 350,000 public comments on the new EIS, about 80 percent favored the phaseout. Collins dismissed those comments as "hate mail" generated by well funded environmental groups.

"The snowmobile industry has met the challenge of producing cleaner, quieter snowmobiles," he said.

The plan takes effect next winter. During the first year, 80 percent of snowmobiles in the park must be four-stroke sleds available for rent at dealers. The other 20 percent of visitors can bring their own sleds, but must make reservations.

During the second year, only four-stroke sleds will be allowed in the park and everybody must either hire a guide, pass a guide's course or travel with someone who has passed it.

SIDEBAR: Snowmobile plan denounced

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

Allowing snowmobilers to remain in Yellowstone National Park is "wrong for the park and it's unfair to the rest of us," a former director of the National Park Service said Thursday.

"This administration lacks the long-term perspective of some previous Republican administrations," said Roger Kennedy, who ran the Park Service under President Clinton from 1993 to 1997. He also worked for several other presidents, including Nixon and Eisenhower.

It is "simply irrational," agreed Denis Galvin, a respected former deputy director who spent 39 years with the NPS.

Kennedy -- who described the debate over snowmobiling as more of a "moral problem" than a legal one -- also said he feels confident that the decision announced Thursday won't last long.

"This is an unfortunate temporary reversal of a very thoughtful process," Kennedy, 77, said in an interview from his home in New Mexico.

The Park Service spent a decade analyzing winter use in Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway, which connects them. Late in 2000, it announced that all recreational snowmobiles would be phased out and replaced with multipassenger snowcoaches.

The Bush administration blocked that program immediately after the January 2001 inauguration and replaced it with the one finalized Thursday, a program that allows for limited numbers of cleaner, quieter snowmobiles.

New administrations always bring new priorities, said Kennedy, a lawyer who has worked for six different presidents.

"This administration is very sensitive to the commercial interests," he said. "That's not a big surprise."

The Park Service had the right answer with the phaseout, Kennedy said, and should go back to that plan.

Galvin agreed, in a phone interview from Virginia.

He said banning snowmobiles follows the legal mandates of the Clean Air Act and several executive orders dating back to the Nixon administration. Plus, it improved air quality and wildlife management, restored some natural quiet and was popular with the public.

"To abandon it and condone an increase in snowmobile use is simply irrational," he said.

Both men said it is natural for a new administration to be suspicious of the actions of its predecessor.

Galvin agreed that the Clinton-era phaseout plan was at least partly political as well, but maintained it was a better idea.

Since the issue is so politicized, the arguing will continue, Kennedy said.

"This story isn't over," he predicted.

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