Speaking of things we’ve been over and over, there’s the issue of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. (It’s another controversy Grist has covered since the early days while managing to not repeat a headline. Can we have a medal? Maybe a cookie?) Enough with the snowmobiles already? Not bloody likely! Today brings the news that 73 percent of the 122,190 public comments on the National Park Service’s winter-use plan for Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks favor booting ‘mobiles from the parks entirely. Less than 0.2 percent of commenters favored the NPS plan of allowing 720 four-stroke snowmobiles into the parks per day. Which sounds like good news, except that the NPS responded by declaring that public opinion would not necessarily guide their final decision. Says a representative of the National Parks Conservation Association, “Americans cared enough to send in their comments on this issue. It’s a shame that one would take that and say it’s not good enough.”
