Yellowstone Snowmobile Ban Defended

A National Park Service official said Wednesday that he has yet to see new scientific information to justify overturning a ban on snowmobiling in Yellowstone.

Despite charges of “bad science” leveled at the ban, park officials said the snowmobile industry has submitted no new scientific studies challenging it.

“It is a disappointment,” said John Sacklin, chief of park planning. Sacklin headed the three-year study that led to last year’s decision to replace snowmobiles with passenger snow-coaches by 2004 in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and on the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway between the two parks.

The International Snowmobile Manufacturers Assn., joined by the state of Wyoming, challenged that decision in federal court. After the Bush administration took power, the Park Service agreed to consider new data provided by snowmobile manufacturers before making a second, final decision next year.

The industry group’s president, Ed Klim, did not return telephone calls seeking a response to Sacklin’s comments.

Sacklin said new information from the industry has been scant at best. “The science . . . behind the previous decision has been challenged a number of times, and terms like ‘bad science’ have been used quite commonly,” Sacklin said. “Therefore, we expected to have seen some studies done by independent third-party laboratories that have been peer-reviewed to back up the information that has been provided by manufacturers.”

Instead, snowmobile manufacturers provided brief generalizations that carry little scientific weight, he said.

Sacklin said the Park Service looked at the potential for cleaner snowmobiles, but it still decided that a phase-out was necessary.