A really fascinating multi-year study is underway at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge which sits on a peninsula along the south side of the Cook Inlet in Alaska (Anchorage and Wasilla are at the innermost tip of Cook Inlet).  Tim Mullet, a Ph.D. student at what looks like an amazing program at the Institute of Arctic Biology, is undertaking what may well be the most comprehensive soundscape analysis ever undertaken on a landscape scale. “As far as I know, nobody has attempted to model sound in the landscape,” says Mullet. “We could encounter some big surprises there.”

Over several summers and winters, he is collecting recordings with 13 units placed in different areas of the refuge; some are permanent locations, and others he moves around in order to explore the soundscape in more areas. He already has 85,000 hours of sound data, and hopes to expand his recorder array to 23 units this year as well. These two articles provide a great overview of what Tim’s up to.

Snowmobile density in the Kenai NWR (red most, blue least); note that the shaded areas on the east side are nominally closed to snowmobile traffic, yet show some sign of activity.

“At this point, I’ve got an idea that 30 to 40 percent of Kenai’s wilderness could be affected by human–made noise,” says Mullet. The study goes beyond simple decibels (loudness), though. It is a foray into the emergent field of soundscape ecology, which examines the interplay of anthrophony (human–induced sounds) and biophony (natural sounds).

Loudness is “a piece of this study,” says Morton, “but another piece is the origin of sound—whether it’s human or nature—and developing a ratio between the two. It’s definitely cutting edge.” Understanding the relationship between anthrophony and biophony is important to the refuge and wildlife conservation in general, Morton says, because “human–generated noise can drown out natural noises—and that can be a huge deal, to the point where animals can’t actually hear themselves.”

In addition to collecting and mapping sounds, Mullet is studying whether moose who live closer to high levels of sound show higher stress levels than those in more sonically pristine areas.  While some snowmobiling advocates seem concerned that Mullet’s work may lead to new restrictions on their access to the refuge, Mullet himself understands and appreciates the key role of snowmobiles in Alaskan recreation, and aims to simply clarify what the various cumulative impacts of noise may be. Snowmobile trails create other impacts as well, especially compacting snow, which can benefit wildlife by offering travel paths, though biologists are also interested in how this easier travel may shift some predator/prey relationships.

More info: See two articles written by Mullet, one on the many qualities of snow, and the other exploring our different ways of listening, and introducing the Kenai study.  Also of interest from Tim is this research proposal, which summarizes previous research into both the impacts of noise and other snowmobile impacts (unfortunately, the sections of the proposal that are yellow-highlighted come through on the pdf as blocked out).

As regular readers will know, the National Park Service completed an epic planning process earlier this year when it released proposed rules governing air tours at Grand Canyon National Park.  After over two decades of discussion, including a failed attempt at coming to a consensus decision with all parties a few years back, NPS planners came up with an approach that was generally well-balanced.  It allows airplanes and helicopters to remain a strong presence in the park, with 8000 more annual flights being allowed than have been occuring in recent years, and half the park still hearing aircraft throughout most of the day.  On the plus side of the ledger for quiet recreation is a groundbreaking no-fly period for an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset, a window of peace and quiet that will transform the back-country experience for the entire park.  And, flight corridors in two popular back-country areas will alternate seasonally, so there is a time of year in each when it will be noticably more serene.

Nevertheless, the air tour industry claims the plan will put them out of business; it’s not at all clear how this could be, given the greater numbers of flights.  I wonder whether the sunset period is especially popular for flights; if so, this could be a bitter pill for air tour operators to swallow.  Yet it’s hard to deny that this is a time of day when river runners and hikers will find their experience immeasurably improved when birds, wind, and water are the dominant features of the evening soundscape.

Heeding the air tour griping, four Congressmen, two from Arizona and two from Nevada, have added an amendment to a Department of the Interior appropriations bill that would strip all funding for implementation of the rule.  Earlier, the region’s two most powerful Senators, John McCain and Harry Reid, signed a letter opposing the plan, and McCain also attempted (and failed) to push through an amendment blocking it.  For more on the current amendements, see this editorial in the Arizona Republic and this post that details objections from other Arizona representatives and the National Parks Conservation Association.

At most of the places where the National Park Service and FAA have commenced air tour management planning (ATMP), there is already a deeply entrenched local air tour economy, as well as a visitor expectation that they can take flight in order to see the beauty from above.  The Grand Canyon is of course the Mother of All Overflight Controversies; similarly, the the Black Hills/Mt. Rushmore and Hawaii Volcanoes ATMPs also dove into situations where thousands of annual flights were already taking place.

But now for something completely different: At Mt. Rainier National Park near Seattle, only 114 flights are currently allowed each year, with actual numbers apparently lower.  This provides a rare opportunity to give real consideration to Alternatives that truly maintain natural quiet on the mountain.  Two of the proposed alternatives would greatly reduce noise in the park backcountry: Alternative 1 simply bans all flights over the park, and Alternative 4 keeps planes to the far periphery of the park, and at high altitudes.  Alternative 3 allows 55 flights per year to circle the peak, and introduces the NPS’s recent innovation (being spearheaded at the Grand Canyon) of setting aside no-fly times – in this case, weekends, and sunrise/sunset on Monday-Thursday, and keeps planes at 2000 feet or more.  Alternative 2 maintains current use patterns around the peak, capping flights at 114 per year.

Truthfully, any of these options will maintain Mt. Rainier as a place where hikers can experience the natural soundscape with minimal intrusion.  But, the opportunity to establish a precedent for keeping commercial air tours out of relatively pristine National Park lands is one that is worth pushing for; we encourage support for the inclusion of the “no air tours” alternative.  Comments are being accepted through May 16.

NPS Mt. Rainier ATMP page ; Mt. Rainier Draft Alternatives

And remember, comments are being accepted through early June on Draft Alternatives at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, too.  There, Alternatives range from 28,000 flights per year to “no air tours” (though this will allow flights around the periphery, and over 5000 feet within the park).  You can read about the process and comment here, and you can download the alternatives here.

The National Parks Traveller blog recently ran a great piece titled Give Us A National Park, Please, But Not its Regulations.  Here’s the lead:

We love our national parks. We love the wildlife they hold, the seashores with their sparkling sands, the forests with their wildlife and hiking trails, the soaring red-rock cliffs and plunging canyons.

But please, don’t ask us to abide by their regulations.

Uproars over managing off-road vehicles in both Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Big Cypress National Preserve, the oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore, air traffic over Grand Canyon National Park, snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, and now bike races in Colorado National Monument all seem to drive home that point, no?

The piece goes on with evocative detail and interesting historical perspective on the Parks’ struggles to balance preservation and access.  Very well done.

Unbeknownst to most of us, a long-term National Forest Service approach to managing roads on its millions of acres of non-wilderness lands has been waiting for activation since January 2001, when the Forest Service finalized a plan for the long-term management of their oversized and under-maintained road system. That plan basically directed the agency to identify an ecologically and fiscally sustainable minimum road system that would meet resource management and recreational access needs. The plan projected that the agency might reduce the overall road system by more than 30%, and that as a result “unroaded” acreage might increase by up to 15% nationally.  Wildlands CPR fills us in on the details with this web post and a real nice pdf version of their magazine feature on the story.

A combination of political neglect and other factors has meant that even as the “minimum road system” goal remained on the books, and was part of the Travel Management Plan process that many forests engaged in over the past decade, implementation of the idea has never happened.

Now that has changed, with the release in late 2010 of a directive from the Forest Service Chief. The guidance memo directs all national forests to identify, through a science-based analysis, an ecologically and fiscally sustainable minimum road system by 2015.

In addition to the five years it will take to conduct this analysis nationally, it will likely take decades to actually implement the minimum system on-the-ground. But the plans developed through this process will, over the long-term, create a blueprint for future road maintenance and decommissioning investments, including Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative funding.

For those interested in large landscape connectivity for wildlife, this initiative presents an opportunity to reduce road densities as well as protect and restore linkages and core habitat. For those interested in clean water and fisheries, it is an opportunity to improve water quality and watershed health. And for those interested in fiscal responsibility, it is an opportunity to identify a road system that the Forest Service can afford to maintain.

Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would derail the National Park Service’s recently-released compromise plan to reduce noise levels in the Grand Canyon.  McCain’s initiative, apparently included in an amendment to another bill (details are sketchy so far, with nothing on McCain’s website so far), would declare that keeping half of Grand Canyon National Park relatively free of noise from air tours is good enough.  By contrast, the NPS proposal, which increased the total number of tourist flights allowed but concentrated them in smaller flight zones, would keep two-thirds of the canyon free of any aircraft noise (including commercial jets and non-tour private aircraft) for most of the day.

McCain seeks to codify what has been the Park’s modus operandi for the past 17 years, a 50% protection standard that was achievable without making major changes.  That interim approach was adopted while Park staff, environmental groups, and air tour operators attempted to come to a consensus on how to move forward.  While the NPS does not and cannot regulate commercial overflights, the sound from high-flying jets does impact the canyon, and the NPS included these sounds in its planning of air tour routes, so as to keep aircraft noise inaudible for 75% of the day in the “quiet” parts of the park (of course, allowing aircraft noise for 25% of the day hardly creates an experience of solitude…but this is part of the compromise that wilderness advocates are being asked to accept).  By not counting commercial flights in the total noise budget of the Park, McCain is rolling things backward.

The McCain approach would also do away with two of the Park Service’s key innovations: seasonal shifts of air tour routes, so that different parts of the park are quiet at different times of the year, and most importantly, the no-fly period that would keep the canyon truly quiet for an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset.

Ironically (or perhaps not, for those tracking the Maverick’s devolution over the past few years), McCain was the main proponent of the 1987 bill that set this process in motion, and called for “substantial restoration of the natural quiet and experience of the park.”

The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010, championed by John Kerry and the National Federation for the Blind, was signed in early January by President Obama. Spurred by concerns that new, near-silent vehicles may pose a danger to both the blind and those not paying attention visually, the law will eventually require all vehicles on the road to make some sound to help keep pedestrians safe. For now, the law calls on the Secretary of Transportation to “study and establish a motor vehicle safety standard that provides for a means of alerting blind and other pedestrians of motor vehicle operation.”

This year’s new entrants in the electic car sweepstakes already include features that help with this problem. The Nissan Leaf makes a sound to warn pedestrians when traveling at slow speeds (at higher speeds tire noise is sufficient), and the Chevy Volt includes a chirping sound that can be triggered by the driver (as a subtler alternative to the horn).

For a look at some sound design concepts for electric vehicles, see this AEINews post from about a year ago.

Been wondering what’s the latest on the Snowmobiles in Yellowstone front?  Then head on over to this good long article from New West, which sketches the history and explores the current tone in gateway communities.

The short story is that after spending the summer accepting public comments on the latest round of “permanent” winter use planning, the Park is operating this winter is operating under the same temporary plan as last year, which allows 318 snowmobiles per day.  Local businesses are adapting to the changing clientele, which includes more skiers and snow-coach tour riders, and far fewer snowmobilers.  My only quibble with the article’s narrative is that it downplays what appears to have been the key factor that has reduced snowmobile use: while the Bush administration overturned the Clinton-era ban which was about to go into effect, and set much higher daily limits (750 machines), a requirement was added that ALL snowmobilers must be part of guided tours.  The loss of free-wheeling exploration by groups of friends led to several winters in which the daily limits were rarely reached; there is plenty of gorgeous National Forest land in the region where snowmobilers can romp freely, so why putter along on group tours in the Park?

UPDATE 3/25: In response to a quick wave of outrage on editorial pages and some Park Service lobbying, Senator McCain has withdrawn his proposed amendment.  It remains to be seen whether he will let the NPS EIS process set the final rules, or seek to have the Senate write rules if the process lags or heads toward a resolution that differs from his sense of the proper balance.

That John McCain can sure be a puzzle.  Or is it a case of the old maverick’s bait and switch, staking the high moral ground while pursuing a typically old-guard agenda?  Whatever he’s up to, let’s hope the rest of his Senate colleagues don’t buy into it.  Way back in 1987 McCain led the push to enact the National Parks Overflights Act, which called for the FAA and NPS to come up with a plan to reduce the aircraft noise experienced by Grand Canyon visitors.  This was a truly welcome and indeed, maverick move.  In the 23 years since then,  as noted by the Arizona Republic this week, “the process of adopting a noise-management plan often seemed to move at the same geological pace as the forces shaping the Canyon. ”  This has frustrated advocates for natural quiet, and it has frustrated Senator McCain.  So when the Senator introduced an amendment last week to codify air tour rules, saying that  the amendment reduces excessive aircraft noise “without waiting another 23 years for progress,” it might appear that he’s still taking the high road, standing up to the ridiculous bureaucracy.

But wait: what the good Senator neglected to mention is that the NPS Environmental Impact Statement governing overflights is due out sometime in April.  Yes, the 23-year wait is at its end, after years of collaborative dialogue and NPS research, and within a few weeks, we’ll see what the NPS has proposed.  Yet for some reason, the great champion of the process wants to undercut that work and impose his own version of what would be right and good.  According to the National Parks Conservation Association, the plan McCain is putting forward would allow more air tours than are currently permitted, and otherwise constrain the Park Service’s ability to manage air tours in order to fulfill the original 1987 Act’s stated purpose of “substantial restoration of natural quiet.”  While most of McCain’s amendment seems to mimic what the NPS has indicated it’s aiming for, an FAA-convened working group fell apart over some of the NPS ideas, seasonal limits on certain popular air-tour corridors.  Air tour managers were upset at some NPS provisions, and in the wake of the group’s failure, the FAA’s role is diminished as the NPS moves ahead.  While the EIS is due in April, comment period will follow, and of course, lawsuits by air tour groups or environmentalists looking for more quiet could also delay implementation.  All this may well fuel McCain’s efforts to get something closer to the FAA or air tour groups’ sense of a fair balance into law, rather than wait through the likely challenges.

The Senate is likely to vote on McCain’s amendment this week; the measure may well slip through, as it is co-sponsored by both Arizona and both Nevada Senators (yes, Harry Reid); many air tours originate in Las Vegas.  The NPCA is urging members to call their Senators, and the Arizona Republic also weighed in against short-circuiting the nearly completed EIS.  (Ironically, the NPCA honored McCain in 2001 for his leadership on the overflight issue.)  See also Senator McCain’s floor statement, and the text of his amendment.  If you do call your Senator, this is Amendment 3528, being attached to the Senate’s consideration of HR 1586, which proposes a tax on bonuses paid by some recipients of TARP funds.

A key research paper from National Park Service and Colorado State scientists has been published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.  The paper, which got a lot of press when it was first made available online in the fall, introduces two key new metrics for measuring the effects of noise on animals.  The first, “alerting distance,” is the distance at which sounds can be heard: these may be sounds made by a species to alert others to danger, or sounds made by predators (which prey animals want to hear, so as to take cover).  The second, is “listening area,” the full area around an animal in which it can hear other animals’ calls, footsteps, and wingbeats.  A key insight offered by this approach is that even moderate increases in background noise (from nearby roads, airplanes, or wind farms) can drastically reduce an animal’s listening area.  The paper, which was free while in pre-press, is now available only to subscribers to the journal or other academic journal services; an article published in Park Science magazine and free to view online introduces much of the same material (be sure to click on the links to the figures, as they illustrate the concepts very well): see the article here, and check out the entire special soundscapes issue of Park Science here.

A very good article in the Aspen Times introduces the research, and includes many extremely insightful quotes from the researchers.  Go read the whole article! Three bits that are especially worth keeping mind are:

• “The male sage grouse, in its mating displays, produces high-frequency popping sounds and swishing sounds,” Fristrup said. “It also uses a low-pitch hooting sound, which carries the farthest from the display area as a long-distance advertisement. The danger is, it doesn’t take a lot of noise to substantially reduce the range at which females or other males could hear that low-frequency hoot. So the attraction radius of the display ground could contract substantially with the inability to hear a hoot.” The authors note that some species can reduce the effects of masking by shifting their vocalizations. This is especially true when members of a species are communicating with each other. However, when the sounds a species depends on emanate from another species (such as a mouse burrowing under the snow, which an owl needs to hear as it hunts), there is less room for compensation.
• Carnivores like lynx, who sit at the top of the food chain, can be particularly sensitive to habitat degradation of any type — including auditory — since each individual requires a huge hunting territory. “If one part of the range of a top-level predator is compromised, it may not take much to squeeze it out,” Fristrup said.
• Contrary to what one might expect, noise is not always more disruptive when it’s louder. Snowmobiles or cars, for example, might be less disruptive to elk or deer than a hiker or cross county skier would be. “There’s pretty good evidence that so-called quiet use can disturb wildlife. If it’s a noisy source, the animal perceives it a long way off and can track its progress. There are no surprises, and it can go on feeding or doing whatever else. A quiet sound, like a snowshoer’s footstep, is only perceptible when it is very close, potentially startling the animal,” Fristrup said.

To read AEI’s detailed lay summary of the research paper, published here in December, see this link.

In the best overview I’ve yet seen of efforts to solve the “problem” of electric cars being so quiet, the New York Times Wheels blog provides a tour of the the apparently burgeoning of field sound design for these future (and increasingly, present-day) vehicles.  Most designs plan to incorporate sounds that will alert nearby pedestrians of a car nearby, but will only emit sound when the car is slow-moving (above 12 or 15 mph, tire noise will be sufficient).

A speaker embedded in the bumper of a Fisker Karma (click to read NY Times blog post)

Among the key questions is whether electric car owners will be able to customize their car’s “voice,” ala cell phone ring tones, or if they should be standardized.  So far, individual auto companies are each pursuing their own standard sounds, which could presumably become part of the “look and feel” of the car’s branding.  A Nissan engineer quoted in a September article from Bloomberg,  says that “we decided that if we’re going to do this, if we have to make sound, then we’re going to make it beautiful and futuristic.” The company decided on a high- pitched sound reminiscent of the flying cars in “Blade Runner,” the 1982 Ridley Scott film. “We wanted something a bit different, something closer to the world of art,” said the Nissan designer.  At least one acoustic design company has turned its attention to becoming the “go to” company for automakers facing this 21st century problem.  The Times blog and its accompanying article are both great reads on this fascinating – and for some anti-noise activists, frustrating – topic.

An ongoing research project from the National Park Service Natural Sounds Program is about to publish a groundbreaking paper that outlines the many ways that even moderate increases in human background noise can create major impacts on animals.  The study proposes a new metric for use in bioacoustics research, the “effective listening area.”  This is the area over which animals can communicate with each other, or hear other animals’ calls or movements; as might be expected, animals focus especially on listening for sounds at the very edges of audibility, so that even a small increase in background noise (from a road, wind farm, or regular passing of airplanes) can drown out sounds that need to be heard.  The authors note analyses of transportation noise impacts often assert that a 3dB increase in noise – a barely perceptual change – has “negligible” effects, whereas in fact this increased noise reduces the listening area of animals by 30%. A 10dB increase in background noise (likely within a few hundred meters of a road or wind farm, or as a private plane passes nearby) reduces listening area by 90%.

In addition to introducing this important new metric, the paper provides a good overview of previous research that has addressed the impacts of moderate noise on various animals, including bats, antelope, squirrels, and birds.  The paper will be published next year, though an “in press” version is available for download.  A recent BBC article also covered this important new work.  A full detailed lay summary of this paper, as previously published on AEI’s science research page, appears below the fold: Read the rest of this entry »

As surely as winter follows autumn, Yellowstone National Park’s annual rite of tussling over snowmobile use has arrived just on time.  After issuing a proposed 2-year winter use plan in September, and opening its arms to receive a round of public comments that likely mimic those received during the previous three attempts to settle this issue, the Park Service issued its interim rule on Friday, and on Monday, the State of Wyoming challenged it in federal court.  With the winter season due to open in December, the now-unsettled situation is a familiar one.  Improving the situation over previous years, however, Wyoming says it will not ask for an injunction to stop implementation of the new rule on the eve of the winter season, since outfitters are basically prepared for the lower numbers already.

Photo: Bob Zellar, Billings Gazette

This time, the number under dispute is 318.  That’s how many snowmobiles the new interim rule calls for; the last full NPS EIS recommended the same in 2008, though the Bush administration intervened and proposed instead that 540 be allowed.  That, of course, spurred environmental groups to challenge the rule, which was overturned by a DC federal court.  The NPS is headed back to the drawing board, and is planning a 2-year EIS process to try to resolve the issue, with the current proposed interim rule to be in place for the next two winters. Wyoming has called for NPS to revert instead to a 2004 winter use rule that allowed 720 machines per day; this rule began a tradition of spurring dueling rulings from federal courts in DC and Wyoming—the DC court saying that the number is too high to fit with NPS science findings, and WY court saying that the limits are too low—which the 2008 EIS was trying to resolve.  Yikes!

Rather than try to recount the whole sordid mess up to now, if you’re a glutton for punishment I invite you to peruse the AEIews archives or Special Report on the issue.  For local news coverage of this round in the mother of all snowball fights, see this article in the Jackson Hole Daily, and this commentary by a local environmental group urging snowmobile advocates to turn their sights toward National Forest lands around Yellowstone where, in fact, winter snowmobile enthusiasts spend the vast majority of their motor-sled time.  This AP article provides a concise history, up to this September when Federal Judge Clarence Brimmer decided that he had no standing to intervene to derail the new interim rule and impose the 2004 limit of 720 snowmobiles (in a legal thread separate from this week’s challenge, Wyoming has asked the regional Federal Appeals court to allow or urge Brimmer to address this claim UPDATE 11/24: The Appeals Court denied the appeal, agreeing with Brimmer that the original issue is moot now that NPS has issued its temporary plan).  In the meantime, let’s all pray for snow and some modicum of sanity to quiet this decade-long dispute in the next couple of years!

In April, a set of voluntary guidelines for air tours in Denali National Park was released, meant to minimize noise intrusions on backcountry hikers.  An Aircraft Overflights Advisory Council spent a bit over a year coming up with the proposals, which included asking pilots heading for the summit of Mt. McKinley/Denali to avoid two high-altitude camps used by people climbing the mountain.

A "sound station" on the Ruth Glacier is monitoring the noise level of aircraft landing on the glacier. NPS Photo.

Likewise, Kahiltna Glacier campers have been subject to planes climbing to cross Kahiltna Pass, where pilots are encouraged to climb to altitude before approaching the pass.  According to the Denali website, these “best practices” are designed to safely reduce sound impacts in key areas, and are subject to refinement and revision as operational experience is gained.  The Park Service is monitoring the effectiveness of the measures; Charlie Sassara, who is a member of the Council, says that “we will now try to look at additional mitigation measures to enact in 2010.”

After eight years of struggling to bring conflicting interest groups together to support a consensus alternative for managing air tours at Grand Canyon National Park, an FAA-organized Grand Canyon Working Group has adjourned indefinitely.  The Working Group included NPS, FAA, tribal, environmental, and aviation industry representatives. At the Working Group’s last meeting, in late June, the GCWG disagreed on NPS alternatives, including a seasonal shift in air-tour corridors by alternatively closing the Zuni and Dragon corridors, which are now open concurrently.  According to a recent article in Aviation International News,  “The FAA does not have a role at this point,” said Lucy Moore, the GCWG mediation facilitator, adding “When the NPS presents one preferred alternative, the FAA will then review it for safety issues.”  In recent years, the NPS has clarified its goals to meet congressional mandates to “substantially restore” natural quiet in the canyon; they are aiming to have half the canyon be free of air tour noise 75% of the time, though high-altitude jet flight will not be regulated.  The Park Service is aiming to release a draft EIS in 2010; see their overflights web page for more details.  At the June Working Group meeting, participants noted that the Park Service seemed more engaged and prepared to push for protecting natural quiet than during the previous administration; however, it is unlikely that the NPS plan will have as dramatic an effect on reducing air tour noise in the canyon as did an August visit by the First Family, when dozens of air tours were grounded for much of the day during a peak visitation period.

It’s deja vu all over again over again over again, as Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar stepped up as the third Administration to attempt the now seemingly absurd task of setting permanent rules governing the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. Both the Clinton and Bush plans ended up with dueling Federal District Court rulings in Wyoming (where relatively snowmobile-friendly decisions tend to result), and DC (where results tend to hew more toward the analysis done by the Park Service, recommending limits).  This time, it took only one day for the State of Wyoming to dash into Judge Clarence Brimmer’s District Court and urge the new plan to be set aside.

The Obama administration has proposed a temporary rule for snowmobile management over the coming two winters, while yet another Environmental Impact Statement is developed.  Their proposal matches the recommendation made in the Park Service’s last EIS, to allow 318 snowmobiles a day into the Park.  The Bush administration had ignored this recommendation, and in November 2008 instead proposed a rule allowing 540 per day; the DC court said that the choice was not sufficiently backed up by the EIS, and ordered the Park to come up with a new plan.  When the Park proposed the 318 number for last winter, the Wyoming court issued a ruling that spurred differing interpretations; the Park Service (likely sensing the likelihood of a judicial logjam blocking the entire snowmobile season), decided that the Wyoming ruling mandated them to revert to an expired 2004 Final Rule that allowed 720 machines, though environmental organizations held that the Judge had made no such firm requirement.  In any case, Wyoming is now aiming to clarify that ruling, by asking Judge Brimmer to affirm their interpretation that his 2008 ruling requires the Park Service to revert to the 2004 rule until a new EIS is completed. As usual, local news outlets like the Jackson Hole Daily have some of the most thorough coverage.

A reality check: last year, the average number of snowmobiles entering Yellowstone was only 205, while in the previous winter the average was 295.  Only a few peak days would trigger the new limit; last year’s top usage day was December 29, when 426 machines entered the Park.  Ever since the establishment of the “guided-tour-only” requirement (a part of the first Bush proposal, meant to overturn the Clinton-era phase-out of snowmobiles), total snowmobile use in Yellowstone has declined dramatically, from a previous average of 840 machines per day during the Clinton years, with peak weekend totals of 1600-2000. Meanwhile, snowcoach ridership has nearly doubled. Still, sound monitoring has found that vehicles were audible over half the day in many popular areas, including at Old Faithful 68% of the time, and 59% of the time at Madison Junction.  It’s not clear yet whether the Obama team will attempt a brand-new EIS, as the Bush team did, or opt for a somewhat faster Revised EIS process; it is unlikely that much new information will be available, beyond  annual noise monitoring data. Tim Stevens, Northern Rockies regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said that two years is too long for the interim plan. “The Park Service has been working on this for over 10 years,” he said. “They’ve got all the information that they need … to complete this in one year.”

Death Valley has become the sixth National Park to initiate a formal Air Tour Management Plan process since the 2000 passage of legislation mandating such plans in National Parks with commercial helicopter or plane overflights.  It’s the first new plan to begin since 2004, when similar planning began at Lake Mead, Mt. Rushmore, and Badlands National Park, and two Hawaii national parks.  The process, under the auspices of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)  has been shockingly slow; initial scoping (information gathering) for Environmental Assessments or EISs took place in 2004 and 2006 in these parks, but there have yet to be any draft EISs released.  Air tour management began at the Grand Canyon well before the 2000 legislation, and continues to move slowly toward final resolution.

At Death Valley, existing helicopter tours operators are hoping that the new process will not limit their activities, which have so far seemed to not cause significant visitor conflicts.  Death Valley also is home to a small airport at which up to 30 private planes land each day, mostly day trippers from Las Vegas or southern California.  The decision to proceed with an ATMP was made at a late June meeting of the National Parks Overflight Advisory Group (NPOAG) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). The ARC is hoping to expedite the process at Death Valley by having all stakeholders more directly involved from the beginning, in hopes of demonstrating a process that can complete ATMPs in a more timely fashion at other parks in the future.  Full minutes of that meeting are available here.

See FAA ATMP website

UPDATE 3/25/10: The Senate has passed legislation allowing the NPS to ban helicopter tours at Crater Lake without going through a lengthy inter-agency process with the FAA.  The measure still needs to be approved by a House-Senate conference committee.

A request from an air tour operator to begin helicopter flights in Crater Lake National Park has stirred considerable local opposition.  The Oregonian editorialized against the proposal, saying that the rim road already provides suitable access to those who can’t hike far.  The same rim road is used by Leading Edge Aviation in its pitch to allow the flights, as they claim that their ‘copters will not cause any more noise impact than RVs in the summer or snowmobiles in the winter cruising the rim.  Others are skeptical that the choppers are really that quiet. Erik Fernandez, wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild, says, “It’s embarrassing enough that we have only one national park and so little protected wilderness in Oregon. Desecrating the experience at Crater Lake with helicopters buzzing around would be tragic.”  Planned air tours range include a half-hour flight that just passes by the north rim and two longer options that skirt other Park landmarks, including Grouse Hill and The Pinnacles. See local press coverage here, and Leading Edge’s tour proposal here.

The Bush administration’s 8-years of Yellowstone winter use meddling continues to the bitter end: after immediately overturning the Clinton-era phase-out of snowmobiles in the Park during the winter of 2001, it has, in its final month in office, issued a rule to maintain a 720 snowmobiles/day limit, after a year in which the Park Service proposed a long-term cap of 540, then lowered its proposal to 318 when a DC Federal Court tossed its plan as not protective enough.  I took my eye off this ball for a couple months, and it ricocheted around the country, through two Federal District Courts (just as the initial Bush rule did in the middle of this eight years of chaos) and through the businesses and bar-rooms of West Yellowstone, WY, continuing to boggle the journalistic mind to cull the madness into a readable narrative.  The bottom line for this winter appears to be a “limit” of 720 machines, which, if the past few years are any indication, is more than will want to enter the Park (thanks to rules that require all snowmobiles to be part of guided tours).  Read our best attempt at a summary below the fold, or see AEI’s Special Report: Yellowstone Winter Use for ten years of gorey details. Read the rest of this entry »

Responding to a September Federal Court ruling that tossed the 3rd Yellowstone Winter Use Plan on the cusp of a new winter season, Park managers have released a proposed interim plan that will, for the first time since the original Clinton-era plan, reduce the actual numbers of snow machines in the Park on most of the busy winter holidays and weekends. Earlier plans had capped snowmobiles at 720, then more recently, 540 per day; the interim proposal will allow 318 per day. Last winter, an average of 290 snowmobiles entered the park each day, but on many weekends and other peak days, numbers reached 400-500, with the single highest day seeing 557. Read the rest of this entry »

The eternal cycle of Yellowstone Winter Use Plans looks to continue for at least one more round, as the third “final” National Park Service rule governing snowmobile access to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks has been tossed out by a Federal District Court after challenges form a consortium of environmental organizations.  DC-based judge Emmet Sullivan found that the NPS plan that would allow 540 snowmobiles to enter the parks each day was “arbitrary and capricious.” Sullivan expressed three key objections: the current average use of 263 snowmobiles is already exceeding the noise standards set by the Park Service (with the additional snowmobiles likely to further increase the area in which snowmobiles are audible for over half the day from 21 square miles to 63 square miles); NPS “utterly failed to explain why none of the seven alternatives would constitute impairment or unacceptable impacts” (despite NPS figures that suggest an increase in exhaust gasses and particulates of 18-100%); and NPS “failed to provide a rational explanation for the source of the 540 snowmobile limit.” The case turned on how to interpret the Organic Act, a 1916 law that established the Park Service

Read the rest of this entry »