Under the National Parks Air Tour Management Act of 2000 (NPATMA), the National Park Service (NPS) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are required to carefully review and develop a single-management plan for regulating air tours over the national parks in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) said that the two federal agencies failed to do what the law requires.
PEER concluded that the air tour proposal by the NPS and FAA didn’t comply with the Endangered Species, Migratory Bird Treaty, and Marine Mammal Protection Acts. Instead, the federal government took a shortcut by simply using the number of tourist overflights as the baseline.
PEER, alongside three other environmental groups, said that the wildlife in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Point Reyes National Seashore, Muir Woods National Monument, and San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park are at great risk.
U.S. Government Fails To Comply With Environmental Laws To Protect Wildlife In National Park Sites
View of San Francisco Bay Area with the Golden Gate Bridge from a plane windowCredit: Shutterstock
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Marin Audubon Society, and Watershed Alliance of Marin filed comments on the proposed Voluntary Agreement for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, and Muir Woods National Monument, citing deficiencies in protecting the four national park sites.
According to PEER, instead of doing an in-depth environmental review on how tourist air flights over the San Francisco Bay Area affect the wildlife, environment, and park visitors in the four national park sites, the NPS and FAA rubber-stamped the existing tour frequencies in the Bay Area without analyzing if the average flights of 2,400 per year (for the past three years) are safe for the national park sites.
Peter Jenkins, PEER Senior Counsel, said that the FAA and NPS sidestepped the court order to fix their past failures to follow the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“This ‘end around’ maneuver shows the agencies want to continue to ignore public concerns over the cumulative impacts of thousands of overflights, even adding a few hundred more,” said Peter Jenkins.
For Jenkins, the two federal agencies are trying to dodge the law by entering into a Voluntary Agreement that’s not environmentally compliant, and did not consider examining the serious combined effects of thousands of noisy flights over the Bay Area.
How A Voluntary Agreement Works
The FAA, which regulates flight and airspace safety, the NPS, which is responsible for protecting all national parks, and three air tour operators entered into a Voluntary Agreement under the National Parks Air Tour Management Act to manage all commercial air tour operations over the four national park sites in the Bay Area.
The current Voluntary Agreement replaces the Air Tour Management Plan (ATMP), which can’t continue to be in force because of the court order. However, environmental groups opposed this new proposal, as the FAA and NPS are allowing more tourist flights of over 2,700, a figure higher than the current ATMP.
Jeff Ruch, one of the PEER Senior Counsel, also said that the NPS and FAA’s new proposal would decrease protection of the national park sites “whose very purpose is to offer natural respites in this major urban center” and increase noise that impacts all wildlife and the environment.
What It Means For Tourism In The San Francisco Bay Area
Dramatic Sunset over San Francisco Bay and the Campanile with the Golden Gate Bridge in the backgroundCredit: Chao Kusollerschariya | Dreamstime
The San Francisco Bay Area is a large, diverse region known for its scenic coastlines, inland valleys, and hills, with urban areas being the hubs for tech, innovation, finance, and tourism. The Bay Area offers some of the best tourist attractions in the U.S. for all types of travelers — may it be the outdoors, cultural experiences, wine country exploration, historic sites, and parks, including Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, where bison roam freely, just as much as in Yellowstone.
But tourism can sometimes hurt the environment and wildlife. These are the main concerns of the environmental groups who are against the new proposal by the FAA and NPS for tourist flights across the Bay Area.
New Proposal (Voluntary Agreement):
More than 2,700 tourist overflights, affecting the Bay Area national park sites
Proposer:
NPS, FAA, and three air tour operators
Challengers:
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Marin Audubon Society, and Watershed Alliance of Marin
Regular travel and tourism in the Bay Area is business as usual, especially for ground tourism, such as scenic driving, hiking, and biking, among others.
However, with the challenges from environmental groups that the federal government is dealing with, scenic air tours by helicopters and small planes flying tourists over the national park sites, flight frequencies might be fewer than the FAA and NPS’s proposal.
Altitude or routes might also be restricted, as well as seasonal and time-of-day flights might be limited to protect the wildlife at these national park sites (especially those that host sensitive species) from excessive noise.
When the U.S. government comes up with an environmentally compliant Air Tour Management Plan, the visitor experience will also improve in the Bay Area, as there would be less noise in iconic national park sites, such as Muir Woods and Point Reyes, giving travelers a more “natural” park experience.
As PEER reiterated, while tourism is good in such a massive area, the expansion of aerial tours without in-depth analysis potentially puts the environment and wildlife at a greater risk, particularly in federally protected lands.