Good case has been made to ban snowmobiles from park

Yellowstone National Park belongs to all Americans and not to just those who happen to live in the states where it is located — Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

A three-year public comment period on winter snowmobile use in Yellowstone resulted in a very large majority favoring the gradual phaseout of the snowmobiles over a period of a few years and their replacement with snow coaches.

The reasons for the phaseout of snowmobiles are as follows:

• The large amount of polluting exhausts they produce, to the extent that park rangers have to wear gas masks;

• Their deafening noise, which startles wildlife and unnerves those who seek respite and solitude in a national park; and

• Their detrimental effect on wildlife, which are at their weakest during the winter.

According to Executive Editor Greg Bean (who was born and raised in Wyoming), how dare Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) or any of us "East Coast busybodies" comment on this issue. Mr. Bean would like us to mind our own business and have us only pay attention to problems in our own back yards.

By his absurd reasoning, we should not have any right to complain about coal-polluting power plants in the Midwest that end up fouling our air, or any other issues out of our area that may or may not directly affect us.

That, Mr. Bean, is not what this country is about.

So far as economic impact, the facts are that there are lots of national forest and other lands that abut Yellowstone National Park that are open for snowmobilers to use.

David Gross

Marlboro