YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Montana, November 5, 2002 (ENS) – Employees in the crown jewel of America’s National Park System may need both respirators and ear protection to perform their jobs this winter. Last winter, Yellowstone National Park equipped rangers with respirators to protect their lungs as they worked in kiosks where snowmobiles entering the park spewed pollution containing unhealthy levels of carbon monoxide, benzene, and formaldehyde. Now, some park employees are experiencing hearing loss, and the world’s first national park is instituting a hearing conservation program as the snowmobile season approaches. The park has purchased and is testing high-tech ear protection, battery powered earmuffs that screen out high decibel noise. Park employees will receive training in how to protect their hearing from the roar and whine of snowmobiles.

 The Montana Department of Environmental Quality says, “Noise can be a health concern for employees working around snowmobiles, since it can cause hearing loss and increased blood pressure. Studies have shown hearing loss for persons subjected to 73 decibels for eight hours per day over 40 years, or for exposures to 85 decibels over a shorter number of years.” Concerns about the human health impacts from snowmobile use in Yellowstone have been expressed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Three environmental groups, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Natural Trails and Waters Coalition, and The Wilderness Society, warn that even after the fifth comment period in three years to demonstrate overwhelming public support for replacing snowmobile use in Yellowstone with snowcoach access, on November 12, the Bush administration will make public its plan to continue snowmobile use in Yellowstone. After a decade of study, the Park Service decided in November 2000 to institute a gradual phaseout of snowmobile use in Yellowstone, beginning this winter. But the Bush administration withheld implementation of this decision to settle a lawsuit brought by snowmobile manufacturers and the state of Wyoming, which wants to protect tourism dollars. Limitations on snowmobiles in Yellowstone, Bush administration officials have said, will be very strict. Yellowstone will not see “business as usual.” The Park Service “will not allow impairment.” But the three groups say, in draft alternatives issued earlier this year, it was clear that “continued snowmobile use would come with less protection for human health and a heavier toll on Yellowstone and its wildlife.”