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YELLOWSTONE BACKGROUNDER: October 15, 2004 Response to Judge’s ruling and background information. Judge’s Ruling Puts Ball Back in Park Service’s Court In Three Separate Studies, the National Park Service Has Determined that a Transition to Snowcoaches Within Yellowstone is Best For the Health, Safety, and Enjoyment of Americans and the First National Park Included below: * What Judger Brimmer ruled, what it means * General background * Recent Administration action * New scientific data and abandonment of previous pledges * New EPA concerns * What’s next? Another Yellowstone case still pending * Economic background WHAT JUDGE BRIMMER RULED, WHAT IT MEANS: Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled late yesterday on a lawsuit initiated by the snowmobile industry and the State of Wyoming that the process leading up to the 2001 decision by the National Park Service was flawed. But while Brimmer thought the process was politicized, two subsequent studies conducted by the National Park Service have come to the same conclusion – that a transition to snowcoaches was best for the health, safety and enjoyment of Americans and for our nation’s first national park. It is important to note that Judge Brimmer’s ruling rejected an industry argument that, under the Organic Act which governs our national parks, the National Park Service has an obligation to keep snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The Judge expressly recognized that the National Park Service has discretion to transition to full snowcoach access so long as the agency undertakes an appropriate process. GENERAL BACKGROUND: In November 2000, following a decade of study, the National Park Service concluded that mushrooming snowmobile use was impairing the resources and values of Yellowstone National Park--air quality, quiet, wildlife, and visitor enjoyment--in violation of the agency¹s legal mandates. The Park Service study determined that the best solution was to phase out snowmobile use within Yellowstone and transition to full snowcoach access. This summer, nearly four years later, the National Park Service and EPA independently confirmed for the third time that visitors would enjoy Yellowstone with much less risk to their health, far less impact on park resources, and greater opportunities to enjoy the park’s natural ambience, if snowmobile use is ended and snowcoach access expanded. RECENT ADMINISTRATION ACTION: Despite the additional studies and their confirmation of previous findings, the Bush Administration is proposing to allow nearly triple the number of snowmobiles this winter that were in Yellowstone last winter. The National Park Service reports that the resulting impacts will include unhealthy levels of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide and benzene, noise at levels that may prompt visitors and employees to "choose" earplugs, and further disturbance and displacement of wildlife. As the Park Service acknowledged, these impacts will exceed the protective thresholds that the agency itself believes are necessary to safeguard the health of Americans visiting Yellowstone. NEW SCIENTIFIC DATA AND ABANDONMENT OF PREVIOUS PLEDGES: The Administration has repeatedly tried to justify proposals to allow snowmobile use to continue in Yellowstone with the promise that the National Park Service would closely monitor conditions in the parks to ensure that snowmobile impacts did not exceed thresholds established to protect human health and park resources. In the Administration's own words: “Should impacts to [Park] resources exceed these thresholds, park managers would adjust the number of daily snowmobile entries, reevaluate BAT [Best Available Technology] requirements, or a combination of these or other management actions." -- 2003 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, page 245. Not only in documents, but in public statements by the Secretary of Interior herself, the Administration repeatedly assured the public that "adaptive management" would be used to tighten restrictions on snowmobile use if necessary to protect park resources and values. “We'll be monitoring the effects and, if we need to, ratchet it down.” --Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Billings Gazette, June 29, 2003. Despite these assurances, the Administration is proposing to do precisely the opposite. In the face of monitoring data that revealed repeated violations of noise thresholds last winter season by the newest models of snowmobiles, the Administration is not proposing to “ratchet down” snowmobile use but is rather proposing to nearly triple the number of snowmobiles that enter Yellowstone each day. Monitoring at Old Faithful last winter, when daily snowmobile numbers averaged fewer than 300, revealed that the threshold for protecting the natural soundscape of Yellowstone¹s most popular destination was exceeded on 28 of 30 days when monitoring was conducted. Yet instead of reducing snowmobile entries or taking other steps to meet the protective threshold, the National Park Service is now choosing to allow levels of manmade noise it previously considered unacceptable and simply define these impacts as less problematic than it previously did. The Administration continues to shun a snowcoach transportation system that would meet its threshold to protect quiet while still providing full public access. In its newest proposal, the Administration is simply choosing to redefine what it previously determined were unacceptable impacts to park resources and human health so that snowmobile use can be accommodated at levels that are predicted to exceed protective thresholds. EPA EXPRESSES NEW CONCERNS: The Environmental Protection Agency has expressed concern about the Administration's newest proposal to allow 720 snowmobiles per day in Yellowstone. In a September 20, 2004 letter to the superintendents of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, EPA reiterated the conclusion that it reached twice before: that banning snowmobiles and substituting expanded snowcoach visitor access "is the 'environmentally preferred alternative' which would best protect park resources." EPA is encouraging the National Park Service not to abandon compliance with protective thresholds which the Park Service said were designed to "ensure that impairment and unacceptable impacts do not occur." (In the Administration's newest proposal to allow 720 snowmobiles a day, the Park Service predicts that thresholds to protect air quality and quiet will be exceeded--for example: with persistent engine noise at Old Faithful and unhealthy levels of carbon monoxide at Old Faithful and Yellowstone's West Entrance). EPA also pointed out that the Park Service has no idea whether the Administration's newest proposal will cause haze in the park, and how much of the park will be affected by snowmobile engine noise. This especially raises a concern because while the Administration repeatedly has assured the public that snowmobiles approved for use in Yellowstone would get cleaner, not dirtier, the opposite has happened. Compared to the 2002 models, the 2003 and 2004 snowmobiles approved for use in the Park are more polluting. The Administration’s failure to acknowledge and address this issue will have real consequences for people who will breathe the additional pollution. SECOND COURT CASE ON YELLOWSTONE These concerns with the new Yellowstone rule will come before Judge Emmet Sullivan who has before him a more comprehensive case than the one before Judge Brimmer. It includes the findings of additional studies that were undertaken by the National Park Service during the past four years in response to a snowmobile industry lawsuit. These additional studies verified the agency's earlier findings including its central conclusion that snowcoaches would provide significantly greater protection to human health and Yellowstone itself than a continuation of snowmobile use. In essence, the broader scope of the Sullivan case incorporates everything that the National Park Service has determined. In December 2003, Judge Sullivan ruled that the National Park Service is bound by its overarching mandate to conserve the national parks and cannot arbitrarily allow snowmobile use in the face of its own studies showing that snowcoaches, not snowmobiles, provide the best available protection for Yellowstone's environment. Judge Sullivan has ordered the National Park Service to publish new rules for this winter season that comply with his ruling last December. These rules are expected to be finalized and submitted to Judge Sullivan in mid-November. ECONOMIC BACKGROUND The Idaho Falls Post Register recently examined tax data from West Yellowstone and commented: Idaho Falls Post Register September 5, 2004 Our View: West Yellowstone's bounce Remember all those bleak stories about West Yellowstone's winter economy shriveling up after dueling federal judges decimated snowmobile traffic into Yellowstone National Park? Something odd happened after the story faded from the front page. The Montana community's economy showed some resilience. Turns out West Yellowstone's winter attraction isn't snowmobiling. It's the park. Maybe the idea of Yellowstone with less air pollution and noise appealed to more cross-country skiers and people willing to take a snowcoach into the park. But visitors still came, and they spent money. West Yellowstone doesn't so much need the certainty of snowmobiles‹as lawyers for the snowmobile industry and the states of Wyoming and Montana told a judge last week‹as it does simple certainty. Last year, the Bush administration allowed 950 snowmobiles a day in the park, reversing a Clinton era plan to phase out snowmobiles and switch to snowcoaches. On the eve of the season in mid-December, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of Washington, D.C., threw out the Bush plan, reinstated the Clinton plan and ordered the maximum number of snowmobiles allowed into the park cut to 493. Next, U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer of Cheyenne, Wyo., threw out the Clinton plan, and that brought the cap up to around 780. By then, however, the snowmobile trade had been disrupted and traffic averaged about 260 machines a day. How bad was the economy hit? The town of West Yellowstone collects a 3 percent tourist tax. That's a good measure of business activity, and it shows January's receipts were off 31 percent from a year before. Then a funny thing happened. The tourist trade rebounded. February's tax collections jumped 48 percent from the month before, and actually showed a 2 percent increase over February 2003. Not great, but hardly a collapse. Indeed, the entire year - including the ill-fated snowmobile season‹showed a 5 percent increase in tax receipts. Other park gateway communities are more diversified so the snowmobile trade didn't affect them as much. That doesn't mean the West Yellowstone economy didn't suffer. But it does suggest there's a way for the community to thrive without compromising the park's air quality, wildlife and solitude. West Yellowstone can adjust and remarket itself. People will continue to visit the park in winter. They'll ski or snowshoe in. They'll take snowcoaches. Given the right incentives, they'll probably stick around to ride a snowmobile through the national forest lands that surround the park. And they'll spend money. The Bush administration's latest plan capping snowmobiles at 720 a day only delays that day. It means more lawsuits, more studies and more disruptions to West Yellowstone. The Bush administration is telling the community what it wants to hear. But it's doing the town no favor. Marty Trillhaase |
