Dan Wenk, who started with the National Park Service in 1975 as a landscape architect and rose to be its deputy director for operations, is heading to Yellowstone National Park to succeed Suzanne Lewis as superintendent.

Ms. Lewis, the park's superintendent since 2002, earlier this summer announced internally that she would be retiring.

“Dan is a superb manager, well-grounded in every aspect of park operations,” Park Service Director Jon Jarvis said Tuesday in a prepared statement announcing the appointment. “He has led our efforts to protect and preserve the resources entrusted to our care, ensuring that decisions are based on sound science and research and that the voices of stakeholders are heard.

"Dan has also had incredible success working with partners and communities to identify and achieve common goals. He is perfectly suited to take on the challenges and opportunities of Yellowstone and to lead the park into the future.”

Mr. Wenk's appointment comes as Yellowstone staffers continue their work on the latest environmental impact statement examining the role of recreational snowmobiles in the world's first national park. In its closing days in office the Clinton administration moved towards a ban on the snow machines, one that the incoming Bush administration overturned. Since then lawsuits, and threats of lawsuits, have prevented the Park Service from taking a definitive, legally defensible, position on winter-use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

Mr. Wenk is not unfamiliar with the debate. Three years ago, during an appearance in Park City, Utah, at the Ranger Rendezvous, a gathering of the Association of National Park Rangers, he told the Traveler that the decision by Yellowstone officials at that time that up to 540 snowmobiles a day should be allowed in the park come winter was supported by the agency's Washington headquarters.

Mr. Wenk, in his role as deputy director at the time, said the headquarters office was consulted by Yellowstone officials before they released their preferred alternative in the Final Environmental Impact Statement in September 2007.

"We were fully briefed before that went out," said Mr. Wenk. "We were briefed and we're in support."

That support came in spite of scientific research conducted in the park that documented in detail that increasing the number of snowmobiles above 250 per day would add significantly to noise and air pollution problems that already exceed park thresholds and would carry additional impacts on the park's wildlife.

Plus, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the research, allowing more than 250 snowmobiles per day into Yellowstone could compromise human health. In June 2007 the EPA told Yellowstone planners that, "Today, vehicle numbers are reduced by two-thirds compared to historic use, resulting in improved air quality and soundscapes as well as reduced wildlife disturbance."

That support also went against the wishes of seven of the eight surviving former Park Service directors, who wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in March 2007 to say that allowing snowmobile use to increase from significantly reduced levels "would radically contravene both the spirit and letter of the 2006 Management Policies" and "would undercut the park's resurgent natural conditions."

And the park's decision ignored the vast number of people who took the time to comment on the draft plan. Seventy-three percent of those commenting on the two parks' proposed winter-use plan favored ending snowmobile use in Yellowstone. Ninety-four percent agreed that snowmobiling damages the natural soundscape of the park.

Of course, things soon began to unravel for that plan, and the politics behind it were exposed. Fran Mainella, who had been the Bush administration's first Park Service director and resigned in the fall of 2006, told the Traveler in November 2007 that top Interior Department officials were calling the shots concerning snowmobiles in Yellowstone.

Ms. Mainella explained that she did not hold the final decision on snowmobiling in Yellowstone.

"All I can say is that those decisions, I chose to have my discussions in the 'house' of the Department of Interior, so whether I agreed or disagreed was reflected in those meetings," she said during a telephone interview. "Once a decision was made by the Department of Interior, I did come out and speak on behalf (of it) because I felt that was my responsibility in the position (as Park Service director)."

Pressed a bit later on whether she supported the science of those environmental studies, Ms. Mainella said:

"We helped develop the new snow coaches to further enhance the improvement of snow-coach use in the national parks. Those were some of the things that we were able to do," she said. "But again, all I can tell you is that those decisions were decided at a level beyond our office. A pay grade higher than mine."

And in September 2008, after a number of groups sued the Park Service over the snowmobile plan that Mr. Wenk said the agency's top officials supported, a federal judge ruled that Yellowstone's decision to continue recreational snowmobile use in the park ran counter to science and the National Park Service's conservation mission and tossed it out.

In his ruling U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote that, "According to NPS's own data, the (winter-use plan) will increase air pollution, exceed the use levels recommended by NPS biologists to protect wildlife, and cause major adverse impacts to the natural soundscape in Yellowstone. Despite this, NPS found that the plan's impacts are wholly 'acceptable,' and utterly fails to explain this incongruous conclusion."

It was that ruling that sent the Park Service in Yellowstone down one more road to seeking a winter-use plan that could withstand legal scrutiny, an effort Mr. Wenk will now oversee.

The park's new superintendent did not mention that hornet's nest in his prepared statements in reacting to his appointment, but rather focused on the joy and respect he has for Yellowstone.

“My first job in a national park was in Yellowstone in 1979. To return as superintendent to where I first learned what it means to be responsible for our nation’s treasures, is a distinct honor,” Mr. Wenk said. “Yellowstone is the iconic destination for more than 3 million visitors from across the globe every year. Its very existence speaks to the values that led Americans more than 100 years ago to start setting aside places of great natural beauty and historic importance for all to enjoy. Caring for these places is a privilege, and I look forward to working with the park’s outstanding staff and network of supporters and advocates who love Yellowstone.”

Mr. Wenk was not available for questions Tuesday, according to Park Service spokesman David Barna.

Mr. Wenk began his Park Service career in 1975 as a landscape architect at the Denver Service Center. He returned as director of the service center from 2001-2007, a time period when he oversaw the National Park Service’s centralized planning, design, and construction services, and provided parks and regional offices with services including contracting and project management.

From 1985 to 2001, Wenk was superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. As superintendent, he oversaw development of natural and cultural resource management programs to ensure the long-term preservation of the sculpture and the natural area of the surrounding forest. According to a Park Service release, "his leadership was integral in the design, development, and completion of a $60 million public/private partnership that raised $30 million in private donations and in negotiating two innovative concession contracts for the construction of facilities valued at $30 million."