A Chance to Get it Right in Yellowstone National Park

It’s been a long haul (the word interminable comes to mind) but the finish line for a cleaner, quieter, healthier Yellowstone truly is in sight. After 12 years, $10 million in taxpayer money and nearly a million public comments, the Yellowstone winter use plan certainly qualifies as an ultra endurance ultra long-distance event.

With a two-year interim plan in place, the National Park Service is now soliciting public input for the long-term management of winter use in our first national park. Over the next two years, the Park Service will consider how best to provide public access in winter while protecting Yellowstone's wildlife, air quality, and natural soundscapes. Finally, after more than a decade of struggle, this environmental study will set in place a permanent plan for winter use.

With your help, we've made enormous progress in providing the best possible protection for Yellowstone over the past decade. We’ve eliminated the noisiest and most-polluting forms of winter access and moderated the disruption to wintering wildlife. Thanks to your involvement and support, we're getting somewhere! Every living former director of the National Park Service has agreed with you that snowmobiles should be phased out of Yellowstone; the EPA and a Federal Court have agreed with you that the Park Service has not applied its best available, sound science and adopted visitation that best protects Yellowstone. The Park has indeed become healthier as snowmobile numbers have been reduced and visitors have turned increasingly to entering the Park under their own power or on more environmentally-friendly snowcoaches.

Now, we have a final opportunity to urge Yellowstone to adopt a permanent plan for winter access that protects the Park and at the same time improves the visitor experience. Please help us complete the transition to a healthier, cleaner, and quieter Yellowstone.

Please ensure a better future for Yellowstone by submitting comments today.

Deadline for comments is March 30, 2010.

Click the following links for a sample letter and talking points.

To submit comments, click http://parkplanning.nps.gov/yell, then select Yellowstone National Park and follow the link for the winter use plan.

Sample Comment Letter:  (back to top)

Superintendent Suzanne Lewis
Winter Use Scoping
P.O. Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming 82190

Dear Superintendent Lewis:

As a Nordic skier [or snowshoer, winter hiker, etc.] who values the natural sights and sounds of Yellowstone in winter, I appreciate the improvements to Yellowstone’s winter environment resulting from reduced motorized traffic, and the requirement for cleaner, quieter machines. I hope you will continue this positive trend and I offer the following suggestions for a long-term winter use plan.

The scoping notice describes objectives that include providing public access while protecting Park resources, increasing visitor understanding, and providing universal access. In keeping with these objectives, it is imperative that the National Park Service abide by the criteria set out in your own Management Policies. In short, that you use the best available sound science; that the process provides for accurate fidelity to the law and policy mandates of the NPS; and that it is in the best long-term public interest.

All of the National Park Service’s studies of winter use alternatives in Yellowstone since 1998 have clearly demonstrated that continued snowmobile use causes a greater level of harm to park resources and that these adverse impacts to air, quiet and wildlife can be minimized with more environmentally-friendly access. Of those alternatives studied to date, snowcoaches appear to offer the best long-term sustainable solution to the questions of access, protection, and understanding. In its independent review of each study, the EPA has verified this central conclusion.

In addition to the National Park Service’s mandate to incorporate best sound science into its management decisions – visitor access that minimizes adverse impacts to air and water quality, the natural soundscape and wildlife – this analysis of winter use should also assess long-term priorities of making reliable access universally available and affordable to visitors.  I also encourage you to use the long-term winter management plan as an opportunity to improve services for skiers, snowshoers and other quiet winter visitors.  Improved services should include groomed trails dedicated to non-motorized use and trailhead services such as interpretive information and warming huts in appropriate locations.

This is a wonderful opportunity to finalize Yellowstone’s path to protection of park resources in winter while assuring that visitors are able to enjoy, learn about, and participate in the conservation of their national park. I urge you to please complete the transition to the least impacting alternative that will accomplish all of these important outcomes.

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Background and Additional Talking Points: (back to top)

Yellowstone National Park is preparing a new long-term plan to manage winter use. The plan will take effect in December, 2011, when the present two-year interim plan expires. The new plan will focus on motorized winter use, including snowmobile and snowcoach use in the park in winter — determining whether use is appropriate and, if so, in what form and at what levels.

Yellowstone National Park is currently operating under an interim plan that allows 318 snowmobiles per day, and 78 snowcoaches, to enter the park. Actual use by snowmobiles has averaged about 200 machines per day this winter; approximately 250 per day since 2003. Visitation for the current winter (2009-2010) is up 10 percent over the previous year, and more visitors are now choosing snowcoaches than snowmobiles for winter access.

Yellowstone’s overarching legal mandate is to conserve park resources and values. In support of this, the National Park Service is required while providing for visitor enjoyment to pursue the management option “that genuinely seeks to minimize adverse impacts on park resources and values.” The resources of greatest concern in winter are air quality, natural soundscapes, and wildlife. National Park Service monitoring has identified continuing concerns with snowmobile use even at reduced levels:

• Noise audible several hours each day, exceeding the Park’s protective thresholds;
• Benzene and formaldehyde measured in the Park’s air at levels exceeding health thresholds; and
• Greater traffic-related pressure on wildlife because snowmobiles require a vehicle for every one or two visitors. National Park Service biologists have cautioned that if vehicle numbers are allowed to increase from their recent, reduced levels, adverse impacts to winter-stressed wildlife may increase and cause “fitness effects,” reducing animals’ health and the strength they require to survive Yellowstone’s winters.

Following a decade of scientific study, the National Park Service in 2000 adopted a Record of Decision to phase out the use of snowmobiles within Yellowstone National Park by the winter of 2003-2004. Based on sound science and in accordance with National Park Service legal mandates and policies, that decision was overturned by the Bush Administration in 2001. Since that reversal, the public has responded to the winter use debate in Yellowstone in unprecedented numbers. Over 900,000 Americans have submitted comments to the National Park Service. Over 80 percent have urged Yellowstone to end snowmobile use and adopt the “least impacting” means of visiting the Park’s interior in winter—the originally envisioned transition to snowcoach access that subsequent studies verified would best protect park resources. Much of the public comment focused specifically on the critical importance of applying science and upholding the National Park Service’s stewardship responsibility to emphasize conservation over use whenever the two are in conflict.

Better Services for Skiers, Snowshoers, and Other Human-Powered Winter Visitors: We encourage Yellowstone National Park to use the long-term winter management plan as an opportunity to improve services for skiers, snowshoers, winter hikers, snow bicyclists and other quiet winter visitors. Improved services should include groomed trails dedicated to non-motorized use and trailhead services such as warming huts. Winter Wildlands Alliance also supports studying the feasibility of a system of huts or yurts from the South Entrance and possibly the West Entrance to Old Faithful in order to provide multi-day ski or snowshoe outings into the Park.

Former Directors of the National Park Service have emphasized in repeated pleas that weakening protection of Yellowstone by authorizing continued snowmobile use within the Park “would be a radical departure from the Interior Department’s stewardship mission.”  They cautioned: “The choice over snowmobile use in Yellowstone is a choice between upholding the founding principle of our national parks—stewardship on behalf of all visitors and future generations—or catering to a special interest in a manner that would damage Yellowstone’s resources and threaten public health. The latter choice would set an entirely new course for America’s national parks.” National Park Service Directors from the last eight presidential administrations specifically pointed out: “…reducing snowmobile numbers still further—from 250 per day to zero—while expanding public access on modern snowcoaches, would further improve the park’s health.”

Studies have consistently affirmed that snowcoaches are the least impacting winter access alternative for Yellowstone. In every major study it has undertaken since 1998, the National Park Service determined that the most effective means of protecting Yellowstone’s air quality, quiet and wildlife while providing visitors motorized oversnow access to the Park’s major attractions is to increase snowcoach access and phase out snowmobiling within the Park. The Environmental Protection Agency independently verified the central conclusion in all of these studies: allowing continued snowmobile use, even with additional restrictions, would result in significantly greater impacts to the Park’s resources than would a system of snowcoach access. These studies have cost taxpayers over $10 million.

A Plowing Alternative: In recent weeks the idea of plowing some roads in Yellowstone National Park during winter has gained significant public attention. Winter Wildlands Alliance supports the thorough analysis of any reasonable scenario, including plowing, in order to arrive at the alternative that will best protect Park resources while providing opportunities for human-powered winter recreation. We do NOT support a plowing alternative that would turn Old Faithful into a snowmobile staging area.

Yellowstone’s winter use plan objectives include ensuring protection for park resources while allowing for visitor enjoyment of those resources (wildlife, natural quiet, clean air), but also anticipates increased visitor understanding of Yellowstone’s natural resources, and providing appropriate and universally accessible winter use opportunities.

• Snowcoaches allow visitors of all ages and abilities to enjoy the park, with some tours now also operating wheelchair accessible coaches.
• Snowcoaches allow for uninterrupted interpretation and conversation among guides and visitors, providing the best means of increased visitor comprehension of Yellowstone’s resources.
• The National Park Service discourages snowmobile use by its employees at temperatures below -25 degrees. Snowcoach visitors are able to safely and comfortably enjoy these crystal cold days in the park.
• Rubber-tracked snowcoaches provide reliable access in recent winters when snowpack increasingly has not covered roads adequately for safe snowmobile travel by the December 15 opening date and in late March when the snowpack begins to thaw. Snowcoach visitation thus offers a better, long-term solution for winter access particularly in light of warming winters.
• Snowcoaches tours are typically two-thirds the cost of similar snowmobile tours, providing more cost effective access for visitors.