|
It's not too late to send in a comment letter....simply
log onto
www.snowmobilers.org
and go down to the Land Access Issues.
New York Times
August 26, 2005
Snowmobile Deceit
It's hard to think of another subject in the history of the national
park system that has been as thoroughly studied as the use of snowmobiles in
Yellowstone National Park. Since 1996, there have been three major
official assessments of snowmobiles' impact on the park in winter. Two of those
were done during the Bush administration. Now a fourth major study has been
authorized; it is to be completed by 2007, when the current three-year plan for
winter use comes to an end. This new study will cost $2 million to $3 million -
for a park that is annually underfinanced by nearly $23 million. There is only
one conceivable reason for this study. It's part of the tried and true
methodology of the Bush administration: if you don't like the results the first
time, do it again and change the definitions so you do get the results you like.
The last
three studies have determined, unequivocally, that snowcoaches are the
environmentally preferred way to take visitors into Yellowstone
National Park in the winter. Yet a draft of a new report, commissioned by the
Interior Department and completed last month, purports to show that the new
four-stroke snowmobiles are cleaner than snowcoaches. It does this by comparing
the cleanest of the new snowmobiles with the existing snowcoach fleet. Since
that includes some very old vehicles, the numbers don't look too good.
But when
you compare the emissions of the new snowmobiles with those of the new
snowcoaches, the numbers tell a very different story. The new snowcoaches have
vastly lower emissions, and they have been increasingly adopted even by some
die-hard West Yellowstone snowmobile operators. Clean snowcoaches
are the fleet of the future.
Last
winter, the average number of snowmobiles in the park was a little under 200 a
day - the low number was partly due to an early shortage of snow and to
uncertainty about how many machines would be allowed. (The cap is now 720 per
day.) All of those snowmobiles, including the one Interior Secretary Gale Norton
rode in February, were guided in groups. The combination of using guides and
having fewer machines had an immediate positive effect on the air quality and
winter quiet of the park. But one of the alternatives being examined in the 2007
study is to allowing unguided snowmobiles into Yellowstone again.
The
surrounding towns are discovering that tourists who come to enjoy the quiet of
the park are as likely to spend money as those who come to roar across the snow.
Both tourists and former snowmobile operators have discovered the benefits of
the new snowcoaches, which include lower costs, greater comfort, better
visibility and less disturbance for the animals. But when this administration
sticks its head in the sand it means to keep it there, no matter what common
sense, science or public opinion says.
| 
Home
What is the ISA?
Membership Information Indiana Snowmobile
Laws Indiana Clubs
Indiana
Trails
