Wyoming Congressional Delegation Pushing Interior Secretary To Move on Yellowstone Snowmobile Plan

Great idea. Let's put into place yet another winter use plan that ignores the law, the courts, the EPA, the Organic Act, science and tons of public comments. Then we can spend a few million more taxpayer dollars doing yet another study, which will be ignored; and having yet another comment period, which will be ignored. It's starting to feel like that Star Trek episode where they are caught in some kind of time warp and they keep living the same day over and over. Or maybe, just maybe, they could come up with a winter use plan that is actually in compliance with the law and with good science!? Then local ooutfitters could actually plan for the future with some degree of certainty. They could get on with converting over to snowcoaches. As compitition went up, prices would come down; and average people who cannot afford four or five hundred dollars a day to rent a snowmobile and guide, would actually be able to visit Yellowstone in the winter. Snowmobilers could still enjoy riding through thousands of acres of National Forest land outside of the Park (no guide needed) as they do now. Park animals would be less stressed. Park rangers would be less stressed. Skiers and hikers would find more quiet and pristine beauty, as well as fresh air. Yes, snowcoaches make noise and polute as well, but the big difference is that each snowcoach can carry upwards of twenty people; instead of having twenty individual machines racing around.
Yes, Superintendent Lewis, let's do this one more time. But let's make this the last time. Let's do it right this time. Let's make this plan beyond reproach. Read the law and follow it. Listen to the reports. Stop chasing pennies of taxpayer money with dollars of taxpayer money. The American people need you (and the Park Service/Interior Dept.) to do the right thing, once and for all.

One issue on motorized use outside the park - the travel plan for Gallatin National Forest has been all but struck down by a judge. There is a good chance that a lot of the national forests outside of Yellowstone will be managed more as wilderness areas. So, there may be a fair amount of restriction on snowmobiles - there already are on the wilderness areas north of the park.

However, it would be extremely unlikely that the entire forest would be managed as a wilderness area. Areas along the Gallatin River are certainly in dispute.

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

I personally would not hold my breath waiting for the DOI to act. While it is encouraging that constituent’s voices are being heard via their elected representatives, I doubt that their wishes will be granted. More legal wrangling is sure to follow.

I also wonder about the longevity of snow coach use within the park. If and when snowmobiles are outlawed completely, snow coaches will find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of the same groups that oppose snowmobiles, and the battle will begin anew.

A strikingly similar situation has already occurred in CHNSRA, in relation to Personal Watercraft, (PWC), useage. About 10 years ago, PWC's were effectively banned in the CAHA park unit through a series of rules that disallowed any beaching/launching from NPS lands. There are also limits as to how close a PWC can operate to the shoreline. All rules are stringent enough to basically make PWC use totally impractical. The really scary part of this ban is that any powerboat could be banned for the same reasons that PWC’s were. (2 Stroke emissions, noise, etc.)

Zoom forward about a decade, and the same groups who sought the PWC ban are now attempting to remove vehicles from the beach, and in many cases foot-bound human access as well.

If this is any indication on what is to come in Yellowstone, I fear for the future of any and all civilian motorized transportation within the park.

Frank N, I second your motion !!!

There should be a huge internal combustion usage fee for for recreational vehicles- boats, PWC, off road vehicles. Mercifully PWC are banned from ocean waters in the SF Bay area, where I live. We get along fine without them. Get a canoe, sailboat or a kayak, or a bike, or snowshoes, or skis. Gas is dead, and killing us. If you love speed get a race car, i'm totally cool with that. The wilderness is not the place for racing internal combustion vehicles.

It's like base closings in the 90's- people screamed it was the end of the world, but once they closed things were not so bad, in many cases better. Once people know it's over they will adjust.

@anon: IMO, a fee would send the wrong signal. If motorized recreational vehicles are detrimental to either the resources of a park or the experience of that park by other visitors (which is of course a resource in itself), then they should not be taxed, but banned. A high fee means: It is OK to endanger the park or diminish the recreation of others for your personal fun if you can afford it.

And that is not only true for purely recreational vehicles. If should apply to cars as well. Shuttle buses (and maybe trams where applicable) should replace individual cars in a lot of parks. But that is a long term thing, because funding will certainly not be easy for the foreseeable future.

Anon,

“Huge Internal Combustion Fee”? Give me a break. Just what means of transportation do you employ on a daily basis?

Every single good or service that you and I benefit from is carried on the back of fossil fuel burning devices, from the food you eat to the computer you use to blog. Gas is dead? Hardly. Even if a viable alternative to IC engines was announced today, it would take at least a decade for that technology to make it to the masses. Also consider the fact that if the next powerplant runs on any media other than a liquid, then the entire fueling infrastructure of the world will have to be retooled. Do you think that’s just going to happen overnight?

Within that same scenario is the fact that we cannot just dispose of every IC powered craft on Friday afternoon and start with the new technology the following Monday morning. The vehicles, construction equipment, aircraft, ships, et al will have to be phased out over a period of time, probably measured in decades. Fossil fuels will be around until they are depleted, and will probably be replaced by a synthetic after that. IC engines will outlive us all.

There’s an “Inconvenient Truth” for you.

I’ve also grown weary of this whole “Addiction to Oil” mentality. To say this country is addicted to oil is akin to saying the human body is addicted to water. It is an absolute necessity, not something we crave.

Am I for cleaner transportation technology? Absolutely. Am I for bettering the environment through reducing harmful emmissions? Without a doubt. But until we have a viable alternative, we must continue to use the best available modes of transport available to us, and not demonize them.

"I also wonder about the longevity of snow coach use within the park. If and when snowmobiles are outlawed completely, snow coaches will find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of the same groups that oppose snowmobiles, and the battle will begin anew."

Good point; but wouldn't it be nice for a change for the Park Service to be able to go to court and say, "We made our decisions based on years of scientific study by both our own internal scientists AND independent study groups, recommendations from the EPA AND public comment after public comment (not just from locals, but from Americans in general....each and every one of whom own Yellowstone); rather than going to court and saying, "We made this decision because this is what a handful of powerful politicians and local business owners want"? I kinda think they would win.
Yellowstone belongs to all Americans, not just to a handful. The Park Service has a responsibility to protect and preserve our parks; not only for us, but for generations yet unborn. Our parks were never meant to be amusement parks, nor were they ever meant to be places that the common man could not afford to visit. In the winter Yellowstone has turned into both. Even a quick ride on a snow coach into Old Faithful and back costs 140.00 a person! Heaven help an average family of four trying to rent snowmobiles and a guide for the day. They need to take out a second mortgage! Skiers and hikers many miles from the road can still hear snowmobiles buzzing around, and best technology or no, if you are on the road when they go by you can't breathe for 20 minutes. I've been there. Half starved wildlife is unduly stressed at a time of the year when food is scarce and travelling only a few hundred feet in deep snow might be enough to sap their last ounce of strength, but people who are heading for the lodge, a hot chocolate, chef prepared dinner and a warm bed.
I would be 100% percent in favor of helping out local snowmobile outfitters during a transition period from snowmobiles to snow coaches. Tax credits, low interest loans; even subsidies. These are just honest folks trying to make a living. They shouldn't be made to suffer. But neither should Yellowstone, her employees or her wildlife.

Maybe it was just a poorly inferred analogy, but the comparison between a human body's need (requirement, actually) for water and our nation's "need" for oil lacks substance and accuracy. We all understand that evolutional development within the human species has left us composed of approximately 78% water (saline in nature, as were whatever our ancestors were) and we therefore have a definitive need for water-based fluids and to some degree food sources. Without thought processes wandering into the abstract, without regular consumption of water in some form, from whatever the source, the human animal ceases to exist.

Conversely, the national "need" for petroleum is by choice, not by any manner of requirement. The basis for our initial industrial development was the coal-fired and steam generation engines, not any sort of petroleum based product. Petrol is a convenience, not a necessity by any stretch of the imagination. Ours in an insistence thrust upon us by oil merchants, not the "choice of the people", and this is due solely to a lack of options available to the masses. These options exist, and have existed for decades, and have only been refined and improved during the course of the last twenty or so years to become more compatible with current technologies, but have been effectively blocked by the oil lobby, who strive to maintain complete economic control of the American public not for the good of the masses, but solely to further their own fiscal security. We are a Third-World country in terms of our development of alternative energy sources, due to the small mentality of the pathetic oil barons, who have sold out the nation's economic future for immediate profit. The major "needs" supplied by petroleum products all have alternative sources available IMMEDIATELY. Heating supplies are in almost literally endless supply though geothermal sources. Plastics are now the byproducts of soy and mostly corn, with the added bonus of being 100% biodegradable. Additional heating, lighting and some cooling are easily converted into advanced "Next Gen" multi-layered solar cells, transportation into hydrogen (100% pollution free), water and garbage burning engines, again the availability of which is effectively masked by the oil lobby. But alas, since the people of this nation are generally lazy, and believe the first thing they are told, no matter who the source may be, and are prone to complete gullibility in the doomsday scenario if we proceed with alternative energy development, we as a populace act the good little lemmings diving off the cliff simply because we though we saw someone else do it first, and God forbid we think and act independently and show some backbone and an initiative in taking control of our own future.

Please spare me the "you don't realize how long it would take to bring these notions to the masses" logic. That usually comes from a lame position of "we can't start a program due to we're lazy and generally content". If we ever intent to lead again, we have no choice but to begin by taking control of our destiny away from both unreliable Middle Eastern sources and corrupt and contemptible internal energy suppliers. Drill for offshore oil? You're only prolonging the problem. With the BILLIONS that it would take to develop new sources, build platforms and refineries, transport and bring the products to market, you could make great strides into the burgeoning "next gen alt en" developing markets, making our national security independent of world politics.
What a concept, eh? International independence! Something our politicians claim isn't realistic or possible.....

As long as we, as a nation, remain stuck in the ridiculous "either Rep or Dem" mindset, we are destined to remain part of the problem, not the solution. Get fired up, get the lead out of yourself and Washington, and FORCE enacted change NOW, or be content with the economic woes that lie directly in the path of our future.

LH,

Sorry, late getting back to the debate. Work gets in the way of fun once again!

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, which I would defend in any forum on any topic. However, to mince alike words like "Need" and "Requirement" detract from my statement. I could have just as easily used an analogy with the body’s need for "Air" versus "Water", but I imagine you would have went on about how air is comprised of 21% Oxygen , 28% Nitrogen and 1% trace gases. That still does not nullify my point.

Conversely, the national "need" for petroleum is by choice, not by any manner of requirement. The basis for our initial industrial development was the coal-fired and steam generation engines, not any sort of petroleum based product. Petrol is a convenience, not a necessity by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh, really? What would you choose in place of it? Is it readily available? If there was an alternative available, would the world not embrace it? You mention plastics being made of biodegradable materials, yet most plastics used by you and I today are petroleum based. If you have a better solution, let's hear it.

But alas, since the people of this nation are generally lazy, and believe the first thing they are told, no matter who the source may be, and are prone to complete gullibility in the doomsday scenario if we proceed with alternative energy development, we as a populace act the good little lemmings diving off the cliff simply because we though we saw someone else do it first, and God forbid we think and act independently and show some backbone and an initiative in taking control of our own future.

That's a pretty broad brush you paint the American people with. To claim such is an insult to the populace. I suppose that you do not place yourself in that category, but yet you have no solution to offer either. Sure, many are lazy, but I don not believe they deserve such derision. We lead the world in technological advancements in so many fields that I cannot list them all.

Please spare me the "you don't realize how long it would take to bring these notions to the masses" logic. That usually comes from a lame position of "we can't start a program due to we're lazy and generally content".

Request for being spared denied. There’s that “Lazy” comment again! I am neither lazy nor content, and wish for alternatives just as passionately as you do. I do, however, have a 20+ year practical background in Mechanical Engineering and Machine Design, mostly in the pharmecutical and Packaging industries. Chances are you have used a product that has been touched by one of my machines. Imagine that!

My point in that context is this: I've got a pretty darn good idea what it really requires to take a napkin sketch of an idea and bring it to reality. Even the most simplistic machine systems take months of R&D and design time to reach the manufacturing stage. Then a "Test & Debug" phase must be implemented to ensure that the design concept is sound. Revisions are always made, and T&D begins anew. In the case of human transportation devices, more attention to detail is required since peoples very lives depend on their safety and reliability.

Case in Point: It took Toyota 4 years of development to take the “Prius” from concept phase to first production vehicle. (1993-1997). Are you going to go on record calling the Japanese lazy as well? American oil companies hold no sway over them either. It took another 10 years to get it to the American market. And guess what? It still uses fossil fuels, and in my opinion, is not the “Brass Ring” that we all hope for.

Don’t you think that the every scientist in the field of transportation and beyond worldwide would love to find “The Ultimate Answer” to this problem? I smell Nobel prize for the person who arrives at the next best solution, as well as unfathomable wealth. How can we account for the fact the no one, American or otherwise, has yet found that solution?

You make it sound far easier than it really is, and you need to realize that.