<< Yellowstone Releases Draft Winter Use Alternatives >>

July 26, 2010
Yellowstone Releases Draft Winter Use Alternatives


Work is progressing on a new winter use plan for Yellowstone National Park
Comments received during public scoping in January, February and March have been reviewed and considered. They were used to help create a draft range of alternatives, which were released late last week.

The six alternatives will be analyzed in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which will be released for public review and comment in early 2011.

The alternatives cover a wide range of possible approaches to the future of winter use in the park. Two alternatives look at different daily limits on snowmobiles and snowcoaches. Another alternative focuses on daily and seasonal caps on machines, while allowing for some unguided snowmobile access to the park.

A proposal to phase out snowmobiles in favor of snowcoaches also is being considered; as is a plan to plow the roads from West Yellowstone and Mammoth Hot Springs so commercial wheeled vehicles could enter the park in the winter.

A "no-action" alternative would eliminate all snowmobile and snowcoach travel in the park after the 2010/2011 winter season.

A summary of the comments received during public scoping, and a newsletter that describes the range of alternatives are available on the National Park Service Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) website at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/yell, and click on Winter Use Plan; or by calling (307) 344-2019. (See the attached PDF, which includes the newsletter referred to.)

Yellowstone plans to host two online, one-hour "webinars" on Aug. 3 and Aug. 5 to provide the public with more information on the range of alternatives and to explain the ongoing winter planning process. In addition, the park plans to hold a one-hour conference call the same week, on Aug. 4, for those who do not have computer access or who cannot participate in either of the webinars.

The webinars are scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 3, 7-8 p.m. MDT; and Thursday, August 5, 10-11 a.m. MDT. To participate in the webinars for Yellowstone’s winter use plan, first read the newsletter (link above) about the draft range of alternatives. Then, go to https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/936260544 to register for the Aug. 3 session; or https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/302796888 to register for the Aug. 5 session. You can visit these links at any time to register up until each webinar starts.

At each of the gotomeeting.com links above, you will be asked to give your name and email address, so that the system can confirm your participation and email you a computer link you will use to connect to the webinar on the scheduled day and time. You can ask questions during the webinar by typing and submitting them from your computer keyboard. However, you also can send questions in advance IF you do so when you first register for the webinars.

You can type your advance questions about the range of alternatives into the box provided on the registration page. Again, please note: The only way to submit a question in advance is to do so when you register for the webinar. You can submit any other questions live after the webinars begin.

In addition, you will have the option to listen to the webinar in two ways: over your computer speakers while viewing the presentation or by telephone while viewing the webinar on your computer. Please be aware that the phone-in option that gotomeeting.com will provide at the time of the webinar will NOT be a toll-free call and may incur long-distance charges.

The conference call is slated for Wednesday, Aug. 4, 7-8 p.m. MDT. The toll free number for the call is 877-918-1346 (this number is for calls from U.S. telephones only). Please enter the passcode, 8654495 followed by the pound (#) sign.

The NPS will provide a 60-day public review and comment period on the alternatives and their analyses when the DEIS is released in early 2011.

www.nps.gov/yell

The Future of Winter Use in Yellowstone National Park

Updated July 22, 2010
Yellowstone National Park and the National Park Service have begun a two-year project to prepare the next long-term plan for managing winter use in America’s first national park. That plan is to take effect in the winter of 2011-12.

Already in place for the winters of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 is a temporary plan that includes limited, regulated snowmobile and snowcoach access into Yellowstone. That plan allows up to 318 snowmobiles a day—led by commercial guides and using cleaner and quieter “best available technology” machines, or BAT for short∼into the park. It also permits up to 78 commercially guided, multi-passenger snowcoaches a day. This interim plan continues to allow motorized snow travel across Sylvan Pass and the East Entrance road to the park.

At the end of next winter, however, all motorized snow-vehicle access into Yellowstone will end unless a new plan to manage such use is in place. For more than a decade, the question of snowmobile use in the park has provoked intense discussion and debate, as well as numerous lawsuits and court decisions.

This special park planning page, and the additional links it contains, are a fresh effort to help you join in the important work of deciding how the Park Service will manage and operate Yellowstone in winter. To learn more and to get involved, follow the links below.

Winter Use In Yellowstone: The Role and Future of Snowmobiles and Snowcoaches

When the first motorized, oversnow vehicles began coming to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-20th century, they entered a winter wonderland virtually without people for the park’s first 75 years. Until those early snowplanes, snowcats, snowcoaches and snowmobiles arrived, handfuls of hardy winter park keepers and visitors on snowshoes and skis were the only human presence.

The opening of America’s first national park to more convenient winter visitation was a sensation—and, eventually, a controversy. Suddenly, many more people could experience the magic of Yellowstone in its most extraordinary season. The growth of mass access to the park in winter came with trade-offs. The early machines were noisier and smokier than today’s snowmobiles and snowcoaches. In those early years, however, the number of snow vehicles was so few—and the novelty and opportunity of visiting a “new” winter destination were so great—that the drawbacks appeared minor to most.

Another access alternative—plowing some or all of the park roads in winter—had been promoted by Yellowstone’s neighbor communities and other advocates since the 1930s. But park managers felt that option was not desirable or practical when compared with the growing popularity of snowmobiles and coaches. Yellowstone in winter was a different place—and this was a different way to visit it than in summer.



Snowmobiles as we now think of them—one—or two-seaters with handlebars and open cockpits—first arrived at Yellowstone’s gates in 1963. By the early 1970s, when the park began to regulate oversnow vehicles, the sport was exploding: Peak sales of half a million machines in 1971 and nearly two million between 1970 and 1973. But strict management of motorized uses in the park did not occur until the early 2000s, when limits on the number of machines, speed zones, nighttime closures and other measures were adopted. In the meantime, management was a challenge. More people were coming in winter. More of them were aboard snow vehicles. And with a parallel rise in the popularity of human-powered journeys into the winter backcountry, conflicts were inevitable.

For many visitors, the machines were the best and most practical way for everyone, and not only athletic types on skis or snowshoes, to enjoy the vast park and its winter extremes. The “sleds” also were a useful tool for Yellowstone personnel to do their jobs in a daunting work environment. Finally, they were a business opportunity for park “gateway” communities hoping to escape, at last, the feast-and-famine cycle of tourism around the park. Until snow vehicles came, Yellowstone to them was a travel hot spot from spring to fall—and cold as ice through winter.

But for other lovers of the park, motorized oversnow use shattered an almost sacred silence and solitude that had blanketed Yellowstone since it first became a park. To them, the noisy machines threatened wildlife already stressed to the limit by the park’s unforgiving winters. So they raised vocal protests, even as they held their breath against clouds of blue smoke and covered their ears against the machines’ whine.


With time, the technology for both motorized and human-powered winter activity improved. Better cross-country skis and snowshoes and mechanical advances and efficiencies in snowmobiles fed the interest in winter trips into America’s snow-covered backcountry. Yellowstone’s winter use boomed—and the motorized sleds became the principal way to tour and see the park in winter.
In the early 1990s, snowmobile reliability and comfort had improved vastly. But continued use of two-stroke engines, with a dirtier mix of gas and oil, worsened winter air quality as traffic rose. The snowcoach fleet still contained a number of the original Bombardier models, whose engines lacked modern pollution controls. The atmosphere was sometimes crowded and noisy.

Although park management and policy did not allow self-guided snowmobilers to run wild through the park, there were some abuses. Critics reported incursions into roadless parts of Yellowstone from adjacent national forests where snowmobiling was allowed. Some visitors also complained of snowmobilers veering off main park routes to race up cut slopes and roadside high spots, a thrill-seeking practice known as “poaching.” These occurrences were isolated and rare. But they entered the permanent lore of good-vs.-bad in the rising debate. When the Yellowstone conflicts came to a head in the early 1990s, nearly two decades of winter planning—and lawsuits over it—were the result.



Even as differing viewpoints hardened, some of the fundamental conflicts on the ground began to change. With the turn of the new century, more modern snowmobiles with less-polluting, four-stroke engines were becoming commercially available. Commercial snowcoach operators began to add newer vehicles with modern pollution controls. They also began to convert the older fleet with cleaner-burning engines, transmissions and exhaust systems. With the adoption of reduced speed limits, daily caps on snow vehicle numbers, nighttime closures and guided, single-file entry into the park, a stricter regime of snow vehicle management began to take hold. The blue smoke lifted. The piercing whine ended.

And so today, winter recreation in Yellowstone still focuses largely on the managed use of snowmobiles and snowcoaches. As the park and the National Park Service prepare the next winter use plan, snow machines are undoubtedly the primary issue and concern. Although the park has made significant progress, a long-term plan for winter operation is not yet in place.

In the end, three key documents guide the operation and management of Yellowstone: The 1872 act of Congress that created the park, the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 that established the agency, and the Park Service’s Management Policies, most recently revised in 2006. All of them express the core duty of the Park Service to protect park resources for public enjoyment now and in the future. The new management blueprint that results from this planning effort must apply those same principles to the day-to-day operations and needs of Yellowstone in winter.

Winter Use in Yellowstone: How to Participate

Getting involved in Yellowstone National Park’s next winter use plan means speaking your mind – in person, on paper, or in cyberspace. Whatever medium you choose, this is the way to make your ideas and opinions known both to the world and to the National Park Service (NPS) as it drafts alternative visions and versions of this important planning document.


More than 9,000 of you did so in the spring of 2010 during public “scoping” – the period for defining the “scope” or range of issues important to this new winter plan. (If you want to read the report that summarizes the scoping process, click on the words “public scoping report” to reach that document online.)


Now, with the help of your scoping comments, the NPS has drafted a list of six potential scenarios for accommodating and managing winter use in Yellowstone. This “draft range of alternatives” is ready for you to read and learn more about as the Park Service begins to study what effects each of them could have on the park and its resources.

Descriptions of these alternatives are included in a four-page newsletter that you can download and print from this webpage. The park also has scheduled two, one-hour “webinars” – online seminars that anyone can “attend” via computer – the first week of August 2010 to explain the range of alternatives and answer your questions about them. In addition, the park will host a one-hour telephone conference call, also that week, for those who do not have computer access or are unable to participate in either of the webinars.


The webinars are scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 3, at 7 p.m. MDT, and Thursday, Aug. 5, at 10 a.m. MDT. For instructions about how to participate in the webinars, scroll to the bottom of this page.


The conference call is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 4, at 7 p.m. MDT. The toll-free number for the call is 877-918-1346 (this number is for calls from U.S. telephones only). When prompted, please enter the passcode 8654495 followed by the pound (#) sign.

The webinars and conference call are intended to help you understand better the broad range of alternatives that the NPS will examine in detail in the forthcoming Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). This study is required by federal law for projects such as this new winter plan. In it, the NPS will examine and analyze the possible positive and negative impacts that each of these draft alternatives could have on Yellowstone and its unique winter resources. The Park Service expects to spend about six to eight months preparing the DEIS.
It is important to remember that your public participation does not end here. Once the winter-use DEIS is released in February or March of 2011, the NPS will accept your written and **** public comments about that document online, on paper and at public meetings that spring, including more webinars and conference calls. We also will take comment on a proposed winter-use “regulation” that would outline the new plan.

After that, the NPS will use your comments and any additional information to study the alternatives further, revise them if necessary and decide on an alternative to implement. Later in 2011, the Park Service will release a final EIS, a formal “Record of Decision” that describes and explains the chosen alternative, and a Final Regulation outlining the plan.

One more note: An important issue raised at the scoping meetings was what would or could happen if the park were to do nothing and allow Yellowstone’s present, interim winter plan to expire without replacing it with a new one. Park representatives explained that without a new plan in place, all snowmobile and snowcoach access would cease. That is because general regulations for oversnow vehicles in national parks across the country prohibit their use unless special regulations – such as those for Yellowstone – are in place to allow them. Therefore, for analysis purposes, the “no-action” alternative in the EIS for a new winter plan would mean zero oversnow vehicles.

There is an important reason why the park is following this planning process: The law requires it. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), passed by Congress in 1969, directs agencies, including the National Park Service, to conduct detailed studies like the EIS to measure all the potential environmental effects of major actions—in this case, the impacts that a winter use plan for Yellowstone could have on the park’s wildlife, air, water, soundscapes, economics, and visitor experience. The process provides for public participation, as this guide from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (932 KB pdf) explains.

The National Park Service plans to use a variety of other ways to communicate with you and the rest of the public as the EIS process goes forward. This may include less formal means in common use everywhere, including “social media” like Twitter. For those of you who want to follow Yellowstone’s Twitter feed (at http://twitter.com/yellowstonenps), watch for updates, including reminders for webinars and conference calls. The aim is to use these popular forms of digital and mobile communication to help advance public understanding of the planning process, attract more public participation and give greater voice to continuing discussion and debate.

And don’t forget: These park information web pages and any social media forums are for education and understanding. Although the NPS hopes they will enhance your understanding, they are not a substitute for your official participation in the NEPA process, which Yellowstone National Park welcomes.

If you would like to be added to the email list or mailing list to receive updates on winter use in Yellowstone National Park, send an email to yell_winter_use@nps.gov, call 307-344-2019, or mail a request to:
Winter Use, Yellowstone National Park
PO Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190-0168

WEBINAR INSTRUCTIONS: To participate in the webinars for Yellowstone’s winter-use plan, first read the newsletter (link above) about the draft range of alternatives. Then, go to https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/936260544 to register for the Aug. 3 session or https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/302796888 to register for the Aug. 5 session. You can go to these links at any time to register up until each webinar starts.

At each of the gotomeeting.com links above, you will be asked to give your name and email address, so that the system can confirm your participation and email you a computer link you will use to connect to the webinar on the scheduled day and time. You can ask questions during the webinar by typing and submitting them from your computer keyboard. However, you also can send questions in advance IF you do so when you first register for the webinars. You can type your advance questions about the range of alternatives into the box provided on the registration page. Again, please note: The only way to submit a question in advance is to do so when you register for the webinar. You can submit any other questions live after the webinars begin.

In addition, you will have the option to listen to the webinar in two ways: Over your computer speakers while viewing the presentation, or by telephone while viewing the webinar on your computer. Please be aware that the phone-in option that gotomeeting.com will provide at the time of the webinar will NOT be a toll-free call and may incur long-distance charges.

Yellowstone in Winter: A Library and Tool Kit for Planning Its Future...

Ecology of Bison Movements in and Beyond YNP
Snowmobile Best Available Technology (BAT) List
Winter Monitoring and Other Reports

Are you ready now to help Yellowstone map a new plan for the use and enjoyment of the park in winter? The previous web pages and numerous links within them contain glimpses of the past, the present and the possible future of winter operations in America’s first national park. Those various visions—and your own views—are influenced and informed by the vast amounts of history, scientific data, legislation, legal decisions and other winter-use information that the planning efforts of the past two decades have generated.

So on this webpage, we offer you Internet links to more details, documents and data that can help you participate. We also will include a link to the official website where you can send formal comments, ask questions and keep track of the Yellowstone winter use planning process as it goes forward in the coming months.


To access this library and virtual “toolbox,” click on any link you choose from below.
♦ WINTER USE PLANNING AND PARTICIPATION:

• Yellowstone’s public comment website for winter planning (go to “Winter Use Plan” for link to current winter plan and EIS)
• Draft Range of Alternatives and Scoping Results newsletter (670 KB pdf)
• Summary of Public Scoping (0.2 MB pdf)
• Public Scoping Comment Analysis (Volume 1) (1.5 MB pdf)
• Public Scoping Comment Analysis (Volume 2) (3.6 MB pdf) (in addition, Appendix 4 of Volume 2 is available upon request. It contains attachments to letters and is approximately 8 MB)
• “Public scoping” newsletter for the park’s winter plan (1.6 MB pdf)

♦ GENERAL:

• Main “portal” to Yellowstone winter-use planning documents and tools
• The park’s winter activities and services page for visitors
• Yellowstone’s winter road map
• The park’s official winter 2009-10 newspaper

♦ WINTER USE HISTORY / BACKGROUND:

• A winter-use issues history for Yellowstone (see pp. 186-190)
• A history of snowmobile policy development at Yellowstone

♦ SCIENCE/TECHNICAL RESOURCES ON WINTER USE:

• Main web page for Yellowstone winter-use technical documents (more than 50 links)
• List of “best available technology” snowmobiles
• Yellowstone Resource and Issues Handbook

♦ LEGAL DOCUMENTS / BACKGROUND ON WINTER USE:

• The current “rule” for winter use in 2009-10 and 2010-11(Federal Register, beginning at bottom of page 60159)
• Park Service “finding of no significant impact” (FONSI) for 2009-11 rule

♦ OTHER GENERAL INFORMATION:

• A classroom teaching guide on snowmobiles in Yellowstone
• A recent book on the history of the Yellowstone snowmobile controversy
• National Parks Conservation Association Yellowstone winter-use web page
• Greater Yellowstone Coalition winter-use web page
• International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association
• BlueRibbon Coalition(public lands recreation access)

So, who will be attending the webinar ?

And what were your thoughts about it?