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5 GEOTHERMAL DEVELOPMENT Despite serious threats to world-famous geothermal features in our parks, existing laws and regulations provide only limited and inadequate protection. Geysers and other geothermal features are among the most unique and popular features of Yellowstone and many other parks. Existing laws and regulations, however, permit or inadequately regulate drilling to tap geothermal or other mineral resources outside park borders that could seriously harm park thermal features. Recent experience in Nevada, California, New Zealand and Iceland has shown that geysers can be permanently silenced if their regional under- ground plumbing systems are disturbed. Of the ten Geysers and other thermal features at Yellowstone and other national parhs are threatened by subsurface drilling beyond parh boundaries. 30 remaining major geyser basins in the world, all but three have been harmed in recent years due to nearby drilling. In 1988, Congress amended the Geothermal Steam Act18 to require the Secretary of Interior to identify, study and monitor significant geothermal resources in units of the National Park System and to restrict geothermal leasing, exploration or develop- ment that is likely to harm park resources. While the 1988 amendments represent an important step towards protecting park geothermal features, they leave parks vulnerable in significant ways. To begin with, the legal standard governing protection of parks under the Geothermal Steam Act amendments is difficult to meet. Geothermal explo- ration and development are allowed to proceed unless the Secretary of Interior demonstrates that "significant adverse effect" to park thermal features is "reasonably likely." That standard leaves the parks at risk because available scientific information and tech- niques may not be adequate to support a confident prediction that impacts are "reasonably likely." ~.~.