Park limits information on accidents and deaths

Glacier National Park and other national parks have adopted new policies that prohibit the release of names or identifying information about people who die or get injured within park boundaries.

Glacier's policy is among the most restrictive, preventing the release of names, hometowns and ages of victims. It was influenced by a recent Freedom of Information Act appeal pursued by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Glacier's new policy, about which the Daily Inter Lake learned Tuesday, is a radical departure from the manner in which park officials have managed past incidents. In cases involving fatalities, the park typically would wait from 24 to 48 hours before releasing the names of victims, allowing time to notify relatives.

Injuries or rescues in Glacier often involve complicated, dangerous and expensive efforts. Names, ages and hometowns of the victims in such incidents long have been provided.

"Information covering such accidents and deaths are of vital interest to the public, and traditionally, for as long as there has been a National Park System, that information has been available," said John Barrows, executive director of the Montana Newspaper Association. "Now, under a cloak of 'personal privacy' the federal government has shut down yet another avenue of information for the public … Never matter that a large-scale search-and-rescue effort might have been mounted; pay no heed to the fact that the injury or death might be related to the park's operations itself."

Melissa Wilson, Glacier public affairs officer, said the policy was approved by Glacier Superintendent Mick Holm with consultation from National Park Service solicitors and public-affairs officials in Denver and Washington, D.C.

A major driver behind the policy, she said, was a Freedom of Information Act filed by The Salt Lake Tribune last year. The newspaper requested reports about two fatal accidents involving juveniles at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon national recreation areas, and the names were redacted from the reports, prompting the appeal.

In a four-page response in October, a Department of Interior appeals officer rejected the appeal, citing two privacy provisions in the Freedom of Information Act.

Separately, Glacier National Park refused to release the names of a father and daughter who were mauled by a grizzly bear in August on the Grinnell Glacier Trail. In that case, identities were withheld at the request of the father, Wilson said.

The Daily Inter Lake filed a Freedom of Information Act request for reports related to that incident, and when the reports were provided in December, the names of the victims, their ages and hometowns were blacked out.

The Inter Lake did not pursue an appeal, largely because the victims, Johan and Jenna Otter, discussed the incident with the media, so the point was moot.

Now, however, the Tribune's appeal ruling has "been interpreted to be our guidance," Wilson said. So even though the ruling referred to a formal Freedom of Information Act request, Glacier Park intends to apply the same strict guidelines to information it releases.

"Since it should be redacted information [in a Freedom of Information Act request], we aren't providing it" in general press releases either, Wilson said.

The question of how to release personal information has been handled inconsistently from one park to the next, says Gerry Gaumer, a public affairs specialist with the National Park Service in Washington, D.C.

"That is part of the problem - we don't have a [national] policy yet, so it's been fairly inconsistent in the field," he said. "But the most recent guidance is that the solicitors are saying we shouldn't be releasing names."

That no-name approach has taken effect on a National Park Service Web site that's open to the public. The agency's "Morning Report" provides information about incidents that occur in national parks across the country, and it used to identify victims.

Not any more.

A Wednesday entry from the Blue Ridge Parkway, an entrance to Shenandoah National Park, refers to a "74-year-old man from Eatonton, Ga.," who was in a motorcycle accident.

Under Glacier Park's more restrictive policy, however, even the man's age and hometown would not be provided, Wilson said.

Yellowstone National Park also will have a different approach to releasing information about victims, but apparently it won't be as rigid as Glacier's. Grand Teton National Park reportedly is continuing with the past practice of releasing information.

Al Nash, Yellowstone's public information officer, said the park "may not" release the names of people who die in the park, depending on the circumstances.

"I feel more certain that those who are hurt in accidents or are involved in search and rescue efforts, we would be more unlikely to release their names, unless it was necessary for us to conduct a search or we were given permission" by the victims' family, Nash said.

The Salt Lake Tribune appeal "is having an impact," Nash said.

"It's certainly the outcome of the ruling that is causing us to reexamine our past practices."

Mike Meloy, an attorney with the Montana Freedom of Information Hotline, questions why the National Park Service is putting so much stock in an appeals decision.

"There's nothing binding about the findings of an appeals officer," he said. "I can't imagine why the Department of Interior would follow an administrative decision when there's a legion of case law for construing the federal act that's different from this appeals officer's decision."

The Freedom of Information Act's privacy provisions refer to a "clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" and withholding information that "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

"The whole issue is whether people have a 'reasonable expectation' of privacy," Meloy said. "That's the central feature of withholding information."

And people who are hurt or killed on public lands in incidents that often require considerable public resources arguably cannot have that expectation, Meloy said.

"Obviously, this is a serious restriction of the public's right - and need - to know, and flies in the face of over a century of public trust with such information," Barrows said.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.