Badlands National Park is seeking comments on how it should develop an Air Tour Management Plan/NPS file

A month-long comment period has opened for alternatives the National Park Service is considering as it works on an Air Tour Management Plan for Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

The alternatives range from denying air tours directly over the park to permitting as many as 16 flights a day, although on an annual basis no more than 1,425 (roughly 4 per day) would be allowed. Currently, two companies that provide the flights are averaging a combined 1,425 overflights per year, according to the NPS, although in 2018 there were 1,729 reported flights.

The issue of air-tour management plans for the National Park System has been hanging over the NPS and Federal Aviation Administration for more than two decades. Back in March, almost two years after a federal judge ordered the agencies to get the job done by this summer, the agencies said the air-tour plans for eight national parks would not be completed on schedule.

It was 20 years ago that the National Park Air Tour Management Act of 2000 was implemented and required the FAA, in coordination with the NPS, to set limits on overflight numbers, timing, and routes to protect park resources and the visitor experience from noise and disruption in any park with more than 50 overflights a year. 

According to the Badlands staff, "[N]oise from air tours negatively impacts existing sacred sites within the Park that are associated with Tribal Nations, as well as the visitor experience and interpretation of the cultural and natural resources of the Park. The NPS is required to avoid such impacts to sacred sites to the extent possible (NPS 2006 Management Policies 5.3.5.3.2 and 5.3.1.1). Additionally, current air tours over the Park impede the NPS’s ability to fully meet the Park’s purposes of protecting wilderness character and values, natural resource protection (including the acoustic environment), and interpreting the natural and cultural resources of the Park. Noise from air tours over the Badlands Wilderness interferes with the opportunity for solitude and detracts from the natural quality of wilderness. The existing air tour operations also diminish visitor opportunities to learn about and be inspired by Park resources and values through interpretation and interfere with the atmosphere of peace and tranquility and the natural soundscapes in the Park and Badlands Wilderness."

As a result, the NPS and FAA have "dismissed alternatives that would increase air tours above existing air tour numbers or that would authorize the existing number of air tours without changes to operational parameters."

Public comments on the alternatives are being taken through October 6. You can read the alternatives and comment on them at this site.