recreationists call for nps apology

In a letter to Secretary of Interior Gale Norton, the BlueRibbon Coalition today called for an immediate apology from the National Park Service. The letter, hand-delivered to the Secretary, August 17, by Adena Cook, Public Lands Director for the BlueRibbon Coalition, demands that John Sacklin, chief planner for Yellowstone Park, immediately retract and apologize for irresponsible and unprofessional comments he made to the media.

Sacklin's comments appeared in an Associated Press story published in papers across the Intermountain West. In it, Sacklin questioned the quantity, quality and overall validity of emissions data recently supplied to the winter use planning team by snowmobile manufacturers, saying,

"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." Sacklin told the media.

The data was given to the NPS to augment the supplemental winter use planning process. That process comes as a result of a lawsuit settlement in which the NPS agreed to review information that was left out or ignored in the previous Environmental Impact Statement.

The snowmobile community has heralded the Bush Administration's decision to revisit the Yellowstone Park winter use decision as an opportunity to refute inaccuracies in the original EIS. According to Cook, pro-access groups believed the process would be conducted in a more professional manner with honest dialogue between YNP officials, the cooperating agencies, affected parties and the public. "I was very disappointed," She said.

"The Winter Use IES was characterized by posturing and inflammatory declarations by YNP and DOI officials that polarized the public and fatally flawed the NEPA process." Cooks letter said. "I had hopes that the new SEIS process would abandon these tactics and proceed in an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration." Instead, Cook continued, "Your statements that 'industry offers no proof of clean snowmobiles' are irresponsible and unprofessional. Coming at the very beginning of the new SEIS process, they will have the result, once again, of tainting the entire process."

The BlueRibbon Coalition was one of several plaintiffs in a lawsuit settled on June 29, which argued that the decision to ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone and other national parks was not based on sound science, but rather made as a result of pressure from anti-access groups who seek to close National Parks to all but mass transit vehicles.