Yellowstone and Grand Teton
National Parks Need Your Letters!

Snowmobilers spend tens of thousands of dollars just for the rigs and trailers to haul their snow machines to the parking lots. Each of these trailers can hold at least six snowmobiles. Meanwhile, competition for "fresh tracks" (untracked snow) increases. Recent reports from the National Park Service reveal that hundreds of snowmobilers are riding illegally into Yellowstone Park's backcountry. Photo: Phil Knight/NFN.

On March 3, Yellowstone National Park turned 130 years old. Yellowstone was the first national park in the world, and holds a special place in the hearts and minds of people the world over. Just south of Yellowstone is the incredible Grand Teton National Park, where some of the most famous mountains in America rise 7000 feet above the Snake River.

In recent years these parks have been overrun by snowmobiles in winter, a time that should be a season of rest and quiet in these amazing places. Winter is when wildlife species are struggling to survive and are most susceptible to stress and disturbance from too many people and noisy machines.

The Park Service has just released a new analysis of the impact of snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Please take a few minutes to speak out on behalf of peace and quiet and clean snow and water in two of our best-loved national parks - Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Tell the National Park Service that you support the phase-out of snowmobiles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks!

Background Information from American Lands Alliance

In November 2000, after a three-year public process that included 22 public hearings and over 65,000 public comments, the Park Service issued a decision to phase out snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks over a four-year period. The existing mass transit system would be expanded to ensure public access to the parks. The decision, based on a decade of scientific studies by university researchers and government agencies, found that snowmobiles are damaging the parks' wildlife, clean air, natural sounds and quiet, and unique experiences that Americans expect to find in their national parks.

Last year, however, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, at the urging of the snowmobile industry, directed the Park Service to reconsider its decision, claiming that science and technology had not been adequately studied in the original decision. The result, released in February, is an environmental analysis known as a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement [SEIS]. This latest document, however, contains no new scientific or technological information. In fact, the SEIS itself points out that the snowmobile industry failed to provide the Park Service with any significant evidence that was not already part of the original decision to phase out snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

In recent years, an average of 66,000 snowmobiles have traveled through Yellowstone during the three-month snowmobile season, and the best science continues to show that protecting Yellowstone Park requires a phase out of snowmobile use. Only one of the four management alternatives in the SEIS would implement the original Park Service decision. Under the others, wildlife would continue to be harassed, soundscapes disrupted, and unhealthy pollution would continue.

Please Take Action by May 29th!!

Our national parks should not be reduced to speedways for high-powered toys.
On behalf of Yellowstone and Grand Teton, we request that you support the decision to phase out snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks by sending your comments by May 29, 2002 via e-mail to: grte_winter_use_seis@nps.gov
or mail to: Winter Use SEIS, P.O. Box 352, Moose, Wyoming 83012 .

Please remind the Park Service that:

• Americans want Yellowstone and Grand Teton to remain peaceful places in winter where bison, elk, and other wildlife are not harassed by noisy vehicles.
  
  
• Snowmobiles in the two national parks continue to cause unacceptable pollution, make rangers sick, and prevent visitors from hearing the eruption of Old Faithful or enjoying the solitude that Americans expect in their national parks.
  
  
• The original, science-based phase out decision should remain in place because it is the only way to adequately protect the world's first national park and nearby Grand Teton National Park.

View the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)

For more information, please contact Alix Davidson at adavidson@americanlands.org or
Hope Sieck at the Greater Yellowstone Coalition at hsieck@greateryellowstone.org.