Park Service alums urge snowmobile ban - Tip-Off

Parks & Recreation, June, 2003

Four former directors of the National Park Service are asking Interior Secretary Gale Norton to reconsider a decision allowing continued use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

"It is our deep hope as this issue now moves to your final review that you will ensure the highest protection for Yellowstone," former directors George Hartzog Jr., Russell Dickenson, Roger Kennedy and Robert Stanton wrote in a letter to Norton on May 20. "To do otherwise would be a radical departure from the Interior Department's stewardship mission." By "highest protection" they mean reviving the proposal made during the Clinton administration to ban snowmobiles from the parks.

Beginning this winter, the Park Service will require snowmobilers to get reservations to enter the parks, and will set daily limits on the number of snowmobiles and noise and emissions standards that will require cleaner and quieter machines. The former directors maintain the Clinton-era proposal--which would phase out snowmobiles and allow only special snowcoaches instead--would be cheaper and better for the parks and most visitors.

For more about snowmobiles in Yellowstone, see p. 44 of this issue of Parks & Recreation.