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Sled ban might be postponed

Sled ban might be postponed




By CAROLE CLOUDWALKER




Limitations on public snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks might be postponed for one year by the Park Service.




The postponement, provided for through an alternative added to the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, would give the Park Service the opportunity to review information including data on new snowmobile technologies. Comments are being accepted until May 29.




The proposal is being met with cautious optimism by Park County officials, who have served as one of several cooperating agencies on the environmental documents.




The Park Service proposes to postpone implementation of existing regulations which phase out snowmobile use in the parks and along the Rockefeller Parkway linking them.




Without the postponement, regulations are scheduled to be implemented starting with the 2002-03 winter season. If the delay occurs, the public would have at least two more years to snowmobile in the parks.




"Additional time is needed to complete a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that was initiated in response to a lawsuit brought by the International Snowmobile Manufacturers' Association and others," Yellowstone spokesman Cheryl Matthews said.




The settlement required NPS officials to prepare the SEIS.




The proposed interim rule was published in the March 29 Federal Register, and is open for public comment until May 29.




Park County Commissioner Charlie Johnstone says a one-year implementation delay was provided for by the NPS, which "completely changed" one alternative of the DSEIS to provide for a "ban, but just a year later."




Johnstone said the NPS originally changed the cooperative agencies' preferred Alternative No. 2, adding the year's delay, but later decided to re-name that choice Alternative 1-b.




"There were three alternatives, No. 1, a no-action alternative, No. 2, the alternative favored by the state and cooperative agencies, favoring clean and quiet machines, and No. 3, with guided tours only," Johnstone said.




"Somewhere during the process the Park Service introduced another alternative, and they called it No. 2; they changed it completely," he said.




"We got them to re-number it 1-A."




Johnstone said the Park Service did not opt for selecting a preferred alternative on the DSEIS.




"It sounds like they (NPS) will be taking a real strong look at economic and environmental effects of clean and quiet snowmobiles," commission chairman Tim Morrison said after reviewing the NPS announcement Monday.




"We suggested, in comments, that the state provide (this) information, and the NPS discounted it," Morrison said.




Commissioner Tim French said it was "our hope they'd take new information into consideration," though he remains cautiously optimistic.




"If they're just delaying implementation a year - what good does that do?" he wondered.




French said the cooperating agencies' goal is to "keep cleaner, quieter snowmobiles in the park, and this is a good step.




"If we can have cleaner, quieter machines, everyone has gained," French said.




Specific information about regulatory changes on winter use in the parks may be obtained online at www.nps.gov/grte/winteruse/proposedrule.pdf.




Written comments on the proposal may be sent to Robert Maguire, Winter use regulations, Park Service, P.O. Box 124, Moose, 83012.