FEATURED POST

With a 2-year, interim plan in place, the National Park Service wants your opinion on a permanent plan for winter usage of Yellowstone National Park. Please use the links below to have your voice heard. Here is a letter from Winter Wildlands Alliance with the details:

Dear Winter Wildlands Alliance Supporters,

It’s been a long haul (the word interminable comes to mind) but the finish line for a cleaner, quieter, healthier Yellowstone truly is in sight. After 12 years, $10 million in taxpayer money and nearly a million public comments, the Yellowstone winter use plan certainly qualifies as an ultra endurance ultra long-distance event.

With a two-year interim plan in place, the National Park Service is now soliciting public input for the long-term management of winter use in our first national park. Over the next two years, the Park Service will consider how best to provide public access in winter while protecting Yellowstone’s wildlife, air quality, and natural soundscapes. Finally, after more than a decade of struggle, this environmental study will set in place a permanent plan for winter use.

With your help, we’ve made enormous progress in providing the best possible protection for Yellowstone over the past decade. We’ve eliminated the noisiest and most-polluting forms of winter access and moderated the disruption to wintering wildlife. Thanks to your involvement and support, we’re getting somewhere! Every living former director of the National Park Service has agreed with you that snowmobiles should be phased out of Yellowstone; the EPA and a Federal Court have agreed with you that the Park Service has not applied its best available, sound science and adopted visitation that best protects Yellowstone. The Park has indeed become healthier as snowmobile numbers have been reduced and visitors have turned increasingly to entering the Park under their own power or on more environmentally-friendly snowcoaches.

Now, we have a final opportunity to urge Yellowstone to adopt a permanent plan for winter access that protects the Park and at the same time improves the visitor experience. Please help us complete the transition to a healthier, cleaner, and quieter Yellowstone.

You can take two steps right now to further improve the winter experience in Yellowstone:

1) Submit written comments.

2) Attend a National Park Service openhouse (6:30 – 8:30 pm):

Feb. 16 in Idaho Falls (Hilton Garden Inn, 700 Lindsay Blvd.)

Feb. 18 in Billings (Hilton Garden Inn, 2465 Grant Road)

March 15 in Cheyenne (Little America, 2800 West Lincolnway)

March 17 in Washington, D.C. (Old Post Office Pavilion, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW)

Deadline for comments is March 30, 2010.
Click here for a sample letter and talking points.

To submit comments click http://parkplanning.nps.gov/yell, select Yellowstone National Park, and follow the link for the winter use plan.