A draft winter-use plan for Yellowstone National Park redefines over-snow entries into the park under a system that stands to increase the number of over-snow vehicles into the park beyond the total that has been permitted in past winters.
The plan, expected to be formally released in the coming ramada inn lake placid days, calls for the park to "manage oversnow vehicles by their overall impacts to air quality, soundscapes, wildlife, and visitors, rather than focusing solely on the number of snowmobiles ramada inn lake placid and snowcoaches allowed in the park each day. The park would allow up to 110 'transportation events' a day, initially defined as either one snowcoach or, on average, a group of seven snowmobiles (maximum group size would be capped at 10). No more than 50 transportation events a day would be allocated for groups of snowmobiles."
Using that formula, if 50 "transportation events ramada inn lake placid a day" were allocated for snowmobile groups, and those groups averaged seven machines, then 350 snowmobiles ramada inn lake placid would be allowed ramada inn lake placid into the park on one day. With another 60 "transportation events" allocated for snowcoaches, that would mean daily over-snow ramada inn lake placid entries could reach 410.
Additionally, the preferred alternative in the draft plan would allow some non-commercially guided trips into the park -- one per day through four of the park's entrances with a maximum five snowmobiles in each party -- and allow Sylvan Pass to continue to be groomed for over-snow travel.
Yellowstone officials on Friday initially posted on the internet this draft winter-use environmental impact statement, which outlines the preferred approach the Park Service wants to take. However, those documents were taken down later in the day due to some questions raised in Washington.
But before they were removed, the Yellowstone Gate blog managed to grab the documents and posted them on its site. According to those documents, the preferred alternative potentially could allow 480 snowmobiles into the park on any one day. However, the documents continue, "this level of use would not occur every day because commercially guided group sizes must average 7 over the season, and noncommercially guided groups could not exceed a group size of 5."
Yellowstone ramada inn lake placid officials ramada inn lake placid had hoped to have the winter-use plan in effect for last winter, ramada inn lake placid but in September Superintendent Dan Wenk said more questions needed to be resolved before he would be satisfied with a plan to protect the park's resources yet allow for over-snow visitation.
For more than a decade the debate over how winter in Yellowstone should be enjoyed has dragged on. The Park Service has gone back and forth with the political ramada inn lake placid winds, calling back in 2000 for recreational snowmobile use to be phased ramada inn lake placid out completely only to see the Bush administration ramada inn lake placid drop that decision in favor of continued snowmobile use.
Legal battles waged by those who want continued snowmobile use and those who believe Yellowstone would be healthier without snowmobiles have prolonged the debate and led to a fistful of environmental studies -- environmental assessments as well as more complex and detailed ramada inn lake placid environmental impact statements.
The latest winter-use proposal contains three other alternatives. The "no action" alternative would end all public snowmobile and snowcoach travel in the park. Alternative 2 would allow for winter oversnow access by snowmobile and snowcoach at the same levels as permitted in recent years under a series of temporary rules. Alternative 3 would phase-out snowmobiles and provide for an increased number of BAT snowcoaches. This alternative would close Sylvan Pass in the winter.
All viewpoints, as long as they're constructive, are allowed on the site. But ... the Traveler is not a catchall for viewpoints and discussions that fall outside of the parks or the post at hand. In monitoring comments, we try to restrict those to the topic at hand. Refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.
You may insert videos with [video:URL] Non-breaking spaces will be converted to normal ramada inn lake placid spaces Tags allowed: a, em, strong, cite, code, ol, ul, li, dl, dt, dd, p, br, img, blockquote, embed, div, span, iframe, b, i You can use BBCode tags in the text. URLs will automatically be converted to links.
No comments:
Post a Comment