Showdown at Yellowstone

Last winter, Jack Welch rode a snowmobile in Yellowstone National Park. He is president of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an Idaho nonprofit that advocates motorized recreation in wilderness areas. Welch has ridden in the park every winter since 1968, but he especially enjoyed last year's trip-perhaps because he almost wasn't allowed to go.

National Park Service rules published in January 2001-as the Clinton administration ended-would have prohibited recreational snowmobiling in the park. But weeks later, the Bush administration put the ban on hold. A legal battle followed, with both the pro- and anti-snowmobile groups, including the Blue Ribbon Coalition, filing lawsuits against the Park Service in federal courts in Washington and Wyoming. Last winter, the future of snowmobiles in Yellowstone remained uncertain, but the motorists had succeeded in keeping the park open to several hundred riders each day.

"I went through herd after herd of bison," Welch says. "I could feel their breath, and yet they paid no attention to me." This closeness to nature-the ability to reach otherwise inaccessible areas, to feel the cold air rushing past, to roam in small groups and to stop at will in order to admire snow-covered surroundings or the visible breath of bison and elk-is something for which Welch and other snowmobile enthusiasts are willing to fight.

Environmentalists are just as ready to fight. They want snowmobiles banned from the park for good. The recreational vehicles disturb animals and make it impossible to enjoy the natural quiet and solitude that the park was created to provide, they say. Scientific studies show that the machines pollute the air. Park rangers have worn gas masks at an entrance where lines of idling snowmobiles emit dangerous fumes, and visitors have described clouds of haze at Old Faithful, the geyser that is the park's most famous attraction. Allowing snowmobiles into the park "shows in our judgment a substantial amount of disrespect for the generations of Americans that preceded us and created places like Yellowstone," says Bill Wade, a former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park and a member of the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, an activist group of more than 350 former career Park Service employees.

High Noon

Those who have been to Yellowstone during winter say it is like nowhere else. "Many of us who work here year-round think of winter as the most special time," says John Sacklin, the superintendent's management assistant who is in charge of winter use planning. "The park takes on a whole new persona with snow covering the ground, with waterfalls turning to ice, thermal features steaming up through the snow banks, bison or elk with their backs covered with snow." But winter is also the park's most sensitive season. Animals struggle to survive with little food in cold weather and deep snow. Wintertime temperature inversions-in which air at lower elevations is colder than air higher up-trap vehicle emissions close to the ground, amplifying their effects.

And the battle over snowmobile use makes the season especially tough for park managers like Sacklin, who must make rules that address a perennial challenge of public land management: balancing conservation and public access. It's the same challenge facing the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service in controversies over drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, logging in national forests, development in Florida's Everglades and other policies. The Park Service has struggled to find this balance as growing visitation in many parks has strained its natural and financial resources.

With four colleagues, Sacklin has spent the better part of a decade working on a plan for winter use for Yellowstone, which spans 2.2 million acres in the northwest corner of Wyoming, and Grand Teton National Park, 300,000 acres south of Yellowstone. Since 1996, the Park Service has spent more than $6 million researching snowmobile use in the two parks. It has produced 4,200 pages of studies plus 90,000 pages of additional documents and replies to more than half a million public comments, according to the Associated Press. There's no end in sight. This year, the Park Service issued a three-year rule that will allow it to monitor the effects of new snowmobiles that are cleaner and quieter. It will conduct another extensive study and then set a final rule.

"I think it helps us to know that people care a great deal about Yellowstone National Park," Sacklin says. "They care about how the park is managed." But the extent of public concern has drawn players beyond the Park Service to snowmobile policy. The House twice has voted on Interior Department appropriations amendments to prohibit Yellowstone and Grand Teton snowmobiling. Neither passed. Measures to permanently allow the machines also have been proposed. Absent specific legislation, the Park Service is supposed to have authority to make such decisions, but the question now has entered the legal and political realms. In this year's presidential election, John Kerry said he would resurrect the Clinton-era ban, while President Bush (and Vice President Cheney, who was a Wyoming congressman) favored allowing snowmobiles in the park. The final decision likely will be made in court, but with two judges issuing seemingly contradictory rulings, park managers have no way to anticipate the outcome.

Slippery Slopes

Yellowstone became the battleground for this debate over conservation and access in part because of its history. During the 19th century, explorers who first roamed the area were filled with awe. "The ground sounded hollow beneath our feet, and we were in great fear of breaking through," wrote one early visitor. "The water of these springs was intensely hot, of a beautiful ultramarine blue, some boiling up in the middle. . . . No one in the company had ever seen or heard of anything like this region, and we were all delighted with what we saw." Word of Yellowstone's wonders spread, and a plan grew to set aside land there "as a public park or pleasuring ground," rather than allowing it to be privately owned.

On March 1, 1872, Congress designated more than 2 million acres in the Yellowstone region as a public park. It wasn't the first time lawmakers in Washington had allocated parkland. Eight years earlier, Congress gave California a grant to protect and manage Yosemite. Since Wyoming and Montana were still territories at the time, there was no state government in place to oversee Yellowstone. It became the first national park any country had ever created and a pilot project for federal park management. Nearly 20 years passed before the creation of the next national park-Sequoia, in 1890. By 1916, though, the Interior Department was running 14 parks and 21 national monuments. That year, Congress created the National Park Service.

Yellowstone remains a model. Land managers from around the world make pilgrimages to "the mother of all parks" to observe its administration. Sacklin recently hosted a group from southwest China, for example. This special status feeds the clash over snowmobiles. Both sides see the park as a precious resource. The snowmobile contingent wants to preserve the privilege of riding up to Old Faithful; environmentalists want to protect what they consider one of the country's most valuable wilderness areas.

But the frenzy surrounding this debate-evidenced by hundreds of thousands of public comments, endless newspaper reports and editorials, multiple lawsuits and the high-level political involvement of two administrations-derives from the fact that it's not just about Yellowstone and it's not just about snowmobiles.

Many believe that whatever happens in Yellowstone could ripple through the entire park system, shifting the Park Service's focus toward greater access or stricter conservation. "Once you've eliminated one user group, it makes it easier to eliminate the second and third and forth, and that's what these [environmental] groups want," says Craig Koll, who owns Old Faithful Snowmobile Tours in Jackson, Wyo. "This is where public land policy in this country is heading if we don't make a stand." Koll says the large crowds of summer visitors cause far more damage to the park, but environmental groups chose to attack snowmobilers first because they were not well-organized.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, see the acceptance of snowmobiles in Yellowstone as a highly visible example of a larger trend. "The current administration is definitely trying to modify [the Park Service mission] through decisions and actions to reduce the emphasis on resource protection and increase the emphasis on recreation, use, access and-in particular-opportunities for motorized recreation," Wade says. He and others argue that laws governing the Park Service clearly state that its mission is conservation, not access. Courts have supported their conclusion. A reinterpretation of those laws could change the course of the Park Service.

Dueling Judges

In the winter of 1996, harsh weather drove large numbers of Yellowstone's bison out of the park into Montana, where officials killed more than 1,000 of the animals in order to protect local livestock from disease. The slaughter led the Fund for Animals, a nationwide animal protection organization, to file suit that spring against the Park Service in federal District Court in Washington. The group believed that Yellowstone's maintenance of trails contributed to the movement of the bison. It argued in court that the Park Service's policy of packing snow on trails and allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone and Grand Teton and along the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway, which connects the parks, violated the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the 1916 National Park Service Organic Act and the 1872 Yellowstone Act. This was the beginning of the legal battle over snowmobiles in Yellowstone.

The case quickly was settled. The Park Service agreed to prepare an environmental impact statement, a comprehensive evaluation of a range of winter use options, plus a biological assessment of the effects on grizzly bears and gray wolves, which are protected species. Winter visitation had increased far faster than the Park Service ever anticipated. In 1990, the Park Service projected that Yellowstone would have 143,000 winter visitors by 2000. Just two years later, the park exceeded that number. The park's research and planning hadn't kept up with the growth in winter visitors, which resulted in part from the expanding popularity of snowmobiles. Summer still was by far the busiest season, but the park had become a year-round destination.

The Park Service published its final 548-page study three years later, in October 2000. It found that the presence of snowmobiles was damaging the Yellowstone environment and was incompatible with the purpose of the park. Most of the snowmobiles at that time ran on engines similar to those of lawn mowers and outboard engines. In one hour, those snowmobiles release into the air the same level of hydrocarbons as a typical 2001 car does over more than 24,000 miles, and as much carbon monoxide as a car would over more than 1,500 miles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The report recommended a phase-out of snowmobiles beginning that winter and completed by the 2003-2004 season. On Jan. 22, 2001, the Park Service published in the Federal Register what came to be known as the "snowcoach rule" because it would prohibit snowmobiles, but allow park visitors to tour in snowcoaches, bus-like vehicles with treads. The rule did not address the issue of trail grooming, which some wildlife experts say artificially changes bison movements and population dynamics.

One week later, the new Bush administration put the snowcoach rule on hold. The International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association-a Haslett, Mich.-based organization that represents the four companies that manufacture snowmobiles-the Blue Ribbon Coalition, the states of Wyoming and Montana, and other groups already had filed suit against the Park Service in the federal District Court in Wyoming challenging the environmental impact statement. The Bush administration agreed with their argument that the Park Service should study new snowmobiles that emit 90 percent fewer hydrocarbons and 70 percent less carbon monoxide and are about half as loud as conventional snowmobiles.

In March 2003, the Park Service published a new rule that would allow up to 950 of these "best available technology" snowmobiles into the parks each day, most of which would have to be on guided tours. Environmental groups filed suit against the Park Service before D.C. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan challenging the rule. Sullivan decided in their favor just as the winter season was about to begin, vacating the 2003 rule and reinstating the snowmobile phase-out with a 50 percent reduction that year. Sullivan found that the decision to overturn the Clinton-era ban was politically driven, contradictory to the Park Service's conservation mission and incompatible with scientific research, which, he wrote, had found that even the cleaner and quieter snowmobiles would impair the park.

Snowmobile tour operators already had invested in the new machines and accepted reservations for the season. They were furious. "It created an incredible amount of uncertainty and economic hardship," says Koll, of Old Faithful Snowmobile Tours. Before the season ended, though, federal District Court Judge Clarence Brimmer in Wyoming ruled in favor of pro-snowmobile groups challenging the snowcoach rule and granted a restraining order and preliminary injunction against imposing the phase-out. In October 2004, Brimmer ruled that the Clinton administration ban was illegal because it resulted from a "prejudged, political decision" and the public was not given adequate time to comment when it was first proposed. "His order justified and verified what we've been saying for a long time," says Ed Klim, a spokesman for the International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association.

Together, the Brimmer and Sullivan decisions sent park managers back to where they had started in 1997.

The Great Divide

In November, the Park Service issued a three-year plan that it saw as a compromise: 720 snowmobiles will be allowed to enter Yellowstone each day while the Park Service completes a new study. All machines must meet standards for pollution and noise, and only guided tours will be permitted. "In the last four years, there have been great strides in producing snowmobile technologies," Sacklin says. The new plan "represents a balance of protecting park resources and providing for visitor access and providing a level of use that is economically sustainable."

In developing the temporary plan for 720 snowmobiles a day, the Park Service found for the third time that banning snowmobiles is the "environmentally preferred alternative." Critics say the agency's decision to choose a different alternative-permitting the vehicles even temporarily-is highly unusual. "In my experience, I don't recall where that has ever been done," Wade says. Park Service documents acknowledge that even the new snowmobiles would exceed "adaptive management thresholds," the pollution and noise caps after which park managers would have curbed snowmobile activity under the 2003 plan. In a September 2004 letter, the EPA urged the Park Service to make adjustments to stay within those limits.

The three-year plan will not end the legal battles. The Fund for Animals and the Bluewater Network, a San Francisco-based conservation group, filed a lawsuit in November asking Sullivan to strike down the new winter rules. They used the argument that trails used by snowmobiles and snowcoaches unnaturally alter bison migration patterns and population dynamics. Other environmental groups might file a separate suit arguing that snowmobiles damage the park.

Snowmobile opponents seem to have an ally in Sullivan. His December 2003 ruling found that the Park Service "is bound by a conservation mandate, and that mandate trumps all other considerations." Environmentalists say the new rules defy his decision. "The Park Service is spending a lot of time thinking about how it can get around orders instead of how to comply with them," says Sean Smith, public lands director for the Bluewater Network.

In the meantime, snowmobile advocates are bracing for continued uncertainty even as they celebrate President Bush's reelection. "We've made the compromises," says snowmobile tour operator Koll. "It just wasn't enough for the wackos."