Guest Opinion: Save snowmobiling from 'planet savers'
By ROGER KOOPMAN
Beware of those who would save us from ourselves, in the name of "saving the planet." Ask the good people of West Yellowstone - until recently, a bustling, smiling little western community. Their environmental saviors have just taken away their jobs, their businesses, their culture and their lives. Like classic dictators, they are blinded by the piety of their "high ideals" and driven by a spirit of self-righteousness that knows no bounds.
It began with a lawsuit and a shocking display of executive power when federal bureaucrats decreed, in the final hours of the Clinton administration, that all snowmobiling in the national parks would end in three years. The election of George W. Bush brought a partial reprieve in the form of a regulated use plan, limiting the number of snowmobiles per day, requiring more guided trips and banning two-stroke machines. Local businesses invested millions in the new four-stroke technology, only to have a distant federal judge declare it all for naught.
Politically driven court ruling
Snowmobiling in Yellowstone Park is a marvelous and uplifting form of family recreation. Yet for most Americans, if D.C. Circuit Judge Emmet Sullivan has his way, this experience will be lost forever. Sullivan wouldn't know a snowmobile from a snow cone, but when the Greater Yellowstone Coalition went searching for a sympathetic jurist to reinstate the Clinton ban, his resume fit the agenda. In a politically-driven decision, Sullivan all but destroyed the winter economies of the communities surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks - an estimated loss of 938 jobs in Wyoming alone. At the same time, he essentially denied wintertime access to a publicly owned park. District Judge Brimmer's more recent ruling puts a temporary stay of the Sullivan decision, but West Yellowstone remains in limbo.
The planet savers have been propagandizing against snowmobiles for years now, promulgating lies that go unchallenged by the media. Instead, journalists carry their strident rhetoric to every corner of the nation, creating a specter of wholesale environmental destruction with warnings of smog-like air pollution and assorted catastrophe. Environmentalist park officials (who gave us the fires of '88) joined in the charade by ordering park entrance employees to wear surgical masks as a poignant - and idiotic -political commentary. In all the years the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has monitored air quality in the park, not once has the alleged pollution level from snowmobiles exceeded federal or state standards.
No pollution problem
In truth, there is no air pollution problem created by snowmobiles. Summertime use of Yellowstone Park in cars, RVs and buses, represents 12-and-a-half times more vehicles per day than winter use on snowmobiles. If we insist on banning snow machines, then cars and buses must go first, since their total emissions, with their four- to eight-cylinder engines, dwarfs that of the two-cylinder snowmobiles.
What about noise pollution claims? Snowmobiles operate at a decibel level under 70. Your home garbage disposal puts out 83 decibels, and the Harley-Davidsons that tour the park all summer produce in excess of 200 decibels. So where is the problem? It exists only in the minds and the press releases of groups like GYC.
Yellowstone is among 17 national parks that Americans have enjoyed through the careful, on-road use of snowmobiles. They provide a special glimpse of nature and an exhilarating open-air experience that could never be duplicated crammed into a snow coach that stops in designated parking lots. My family cherishes the times that we explored the park together on snowmobiles. The mental picture of those stair-steps of smiling faces will remain forever a fond memory. It seems to me, that's what our national park system is all about - good stewardship and maximum public enjoyment.
The extremists wish to remove all that. They argue that our national parks should be "pristine, unspoiled places," free of human impact. But is that a realistic or even a desirable goal? Let's face it. Every human use will have some impact. If you introduce millions of visitors into a place like Yellowstone, there will be, cumulatively, millions of little impacts. And millions of little smiles on millions of little faces. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Or managed wisely, can our national parks remain centers of public enjoyment, while fully preserved for the generations to come?
Make no mistake. The planet savers, in their heart of hearts, believe all human activity is an encroachment on the natural world they worship. They may begin with snowmobiles but their ultimate goal is to protect public lands from public use.
Roger Koopman is the state president of the Bozeman-based Chamber of Private Enterprise, an organization open to private businesses that pledge to refuse government subsidies or other unearned financial support.
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