Protecting Yellowstone: Science and the Politics of National Park Management

3: More Precious than Gold

80 Chapter Three More Precious than Gold S You have the longest leash in the world. —Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt These are not your normal bunch of crazies. —Alex Balogh, of Noranda Minerals Corporation, in reference to GYC staff members opposed to his company’s proposed mine % Vacationing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for two weeks in August 1995, President Bill Clinton took a day to travel to Yellowstone National Park with his family. To promote his environmental image, Clinton gave a speech at Old Faithful Geyser supporting protection “of our land, our water, our food, the diversity of our wildlife and the sanctity of our national treasures.”1 The comment about national treasures being sacred was an allusion to an environmental threat he had just learned of: a proposal to build a large gold mine just outside of Yellowstone. This mine promised a long list of problems for park managers if it were to be developed . With his interest piqued, Clinton, after watching Old Faithful Geyser erupt, boarded a helicopter and then traveled to the proposed mine site with Yellowstone superintendent Mike Finley. From there, Clinton returned to Jackson Hole for the rest of his vacation. His departure from Wonderland More Precious than Gold 81 S (the historic name for Yellowstone), however, was only temporary, for his influence would remain in the region and he himself would soon return.2 To have the president’s interest—and soon involvement—in a national park’s policy making is uncommon and partly a reflection of Yellowstone’s high national visibility. And yet, the two previous controversies at Yellowstone did not achieve presidential attention, so something was different about this particular controversy. As the following discussion will reveal, Yellowstone superintendent Mike Finley and the NPS came to enjoy an extraordinary coalition with environmentalists and the press, who in turn used masterful framing of the issue (opposition to the gold mine) as a classic good guy versus bad guy contest to their advantage. With such strong assistance—and with eventual support (not just a lack of opposition) from the Wyoming congressional delegation—Yellowstone managers achieved a level of political support only seen in the wolf-reintroduction issue, which occurred at almost the same time. Because mines are commonly seen as offering a boost to local and regional economies, it would take such an alignment of support for park managers to succeed in defeating the New World Mine proposal. Complementing the political support was an existing body of supportive scientific evidence regarding mining’s environmental impacts; like the scientific research regarding wildfires in natural ecosystems, it was well established . Particularly clear was that most mines contaminated nearby waters with toxic minerals and acids. It was not immediately clear, however, that such would be the case with this gold mine, or that the waters in Yellowstone National Park would be impacted. Eventually, those doubts would be erased, enabling park managers and mine opponents to add scientific research as a powerful weapon in their arsenal against the proposed mine. With both scientific studies and politics on board against the gold mine, this controversy’s outcome may have seemed like a foregone conclusion. However, it was no easy task to apply the science to this issue successfully and it was an even more difficult task to reverse the typical political stance in favor of economic enhancement. Compounding the difficulties was a belated response by the National Park Service (NPS) itself against the proposed mine, a delay due largely to the evolving political situation at the time. The agency’s delay could have cost the agency this battle, despite the scientific research base and support of the environmental community. The risk that the agency took by delaying its response to the mine threat is the reason that this chapter will suggest that national park policy-making outcomes often reflect political influences as much as they do the conclusions of the existing research base. Chapter Three 82 S However, the NPS has considerable ability to influence the political context, as this story will illustrate. By methodically aligning the other determinants in its favor, the NPS was able to move the political determinant toward its desired goals. The New World Mine: Politics, Science, and Coalitions of the Unafraid The roots of the New World Mine controversy date back to the 1870s, when two exploratory parties made very different discoveries in the Yellowstone region: one group was looking...