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The Environmental Imact of Snowmobiles
 It
seems as though it is an ongoing struggle to keep the environment
safe from too much pollution. Many snowmobile manufacturers have
taken this into consideration when designing newer models of snowmobiles
that will meet Environmental Protection Agency standards. The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency continues to issue new air pollution
regulations today for any “nonroad” recreational machines
and industrial engines, which, of course includes snowmobiles. Snowmobiles
are known to have heavily air polluting engines that were, for a
long time not subject to basic emissions regulations under the federal
Clean Air Act. A standard 2-stroke snowmobile engine—which
has been replaced by most snowmobile manufacturers by a 4-stroke
engine—produces as much ghastly and extremely environmentally
harmful pollution after being ridden for seven hours than a passenger
car that has been driven for at least 100,000 miles.
Emission standards that have been reformed and re-issued by Environmental
Protection Agency still failed to protect human health and air quality
and did not meet the clean technology standards required by law.
However, these Environmental Protection Agency regulations are continuously
being revisited and revised. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection
Agency moving forward with emission standards for snowmobiles is
a difficult job—though they have made great strides.
Yellowstone National Park has set its own policies and limitations
on snowmobiles allowed in their park. Thus, manufacturers have worked
very hard in recent years to omit harmful air pollutants from what
once were very dirty engines. Most manufacturers set goals to meet
the standards of Yellowstone National Park, with the help of new
technology and dedicated engineering, newer snowmobile engines are
much cleaner and much safer for the environment than they have been
in the past. Even so, Yellowstone National Park has limited the
number of snowmobiles allowed in the park during the beautiful winter
months. So snowmobilers, make your reservations early!
With a reputation for being an environmental risk to everyone, the
result of the snowmobile engines of the past has created bad public
criticisms. But it seems that these too are slowly going away. Environmental
awareness is something that many people take very seriously, but
the sport continues to become more popular, snowmobiles continue
to become more environmentally sound vehicles.
Pollutants and harmful emissions should be a concern to us all,
not just the Environmental Protection Agency, and to many of us
it is. If you are going to buy or rent a snowmobile, do a little
research first. Find out how damaging the snowmobile of your choice
may be to the environment—if it is very harmful, consider
another model that may be safer not just for you, but for everyone.
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