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The appended article explores some of the very real recreation related problems currently being experienced within the Grand Canyon River Corridor and suggests these issues go far beyond park boundaries. And, of course they do.
What is happening at the Grand Canyon is but an example of the commercialization, privatization and motorization of recreational opportunities taking place on America's public lands. It is, however, an unusually good example because each of the specific issues of 'commercialization', 'privatization' and 'motorization' are clearly visible. Equally visible, is the pivotal role private industry is playing in perpetuating and exacerbating these problems.
When you come upon the name "Gaylord Staveley", please recognize that Staveley is NOT just some outfitter - as this article suggests. Staveley is, amongst other things, Vice President Government Affairs for National Forest Recreation Association, an American Recreation Coalition member which represents approximately 1800 public lands concessionaire companies. Staveley also speaks for America Outdoors, another ARC member corporation which represents 600 of outfitter/guide companies and organizations.
America Outdoors recently wrote the Anti-Wilderness "Outfitter Guide Bill of 1999" (SB 1969) -- special purpose legislation designed to support all the worst elements found in the article below....
Also supporting these worst elements is the growing dependence of federal land management agencies upon revenues obtained by promoting pay-to-play wreckreation and the Disneyfication of the Wild.
Scott
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September 26, 1999
Canyon users debate motorized rafts on Colorado Issue might ripple outside park borders
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK -- They climbed off the Las Vegas charter
bus, a group of mostly middle-age, none-too-fit vacationers, glancing
eagerly at the river on which they would spend the next eight days.
The Colorado glistened in the hot morning sun, ready to carry them more
than 200 miles through the Grand Canyon, a trip that once was an exotic
adventure for the hardy but now requires little more than money and
plenty of suntan lotion.
Of the 22,000 people who boat through the Grand Canyon every year, more
than 80 percent do it with commercial companies, the majority on big
motorized rafts such as the ones this group clambered on.
Piled high with provisions and even portable toilets, their passengers
squeezed around the baggage, the engine-powered rafts are at the center
of a controversy that is boiling up like a troublesome rapid.
Whether motors should be allowed in the ancient, mile-deep recesses of
the river gorge -- where quiet creates its own magic -- is under
passionate debate.
It is not just a matter of decibel levels, but of commercial profits,
public access and ultimately, the kind of experience visitors should
have in what explorer John W. Powell described a century ago as a land
of gigantic scenery, mad waters, soaring rock walls and grand, gloomy
depths.
The dispute is but one of many besetting Grand Canyon National Park,
which is struggling with more contentious issues about use than
probably any other national park in the country.
Environmentalists fret that between the hum of raft engines, the drone
of sightseeing planes, plans for commercial development outside the
park and the roar of tourist buses ferrying in some of the canyon's 5
million annual visitors, one of the nation's natural treasures is
turning into a veritable amusement park.
"It's a real comprehensive assault on the wilderness, by air and on the river," said Sierra Club activist Sharon Galbreath.
Just about any topic of substance in this carved and sculpted landscape can become a point of conflict.
"I have not yet encountered an issue in my five years here that isn't
hot," said park Superintendent Rob Arnberger. "They're all
controversial and all involve constituencies that are highly polarized."
The raft fight first erupted nearly 20 years ago when the park service
proposed phasing out motors on the Colorado. The ensuing uproar and
congressional action squelched the effort.
The park administration is once again working on a management plan that
could lead to a ban on motors or a reduction in their use. The prospect
that motors could be barred from the Colorado has the canyon's
$25-million-a-year commercial rafting industry frothing.
Most people prefer to go on motor trips, said Mark Grisham, executive
director of the Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association, which
represents the 16 companies that hold rafting concessions in the park.
Grisham contends that at an average of $215 per day per person, far
fewer visitors would be willing to raft the canyon by oar because of
the extra expense and time required -- typically 14 days for a full
trip rather than seven.
"It's not about the motors," he said. "It's first about the time, and second, the cost."
Moreover, commercial outfitters say the trips on large motorized rafts
appeal to a broader cross section of the public -- the older and less
adventuresome for instance -- than the ones on smaller oar rafts.
"It's about who the canyon is for," said outfitter Gaylord Staveley,
who started running river trips in 1957 and owns Canyoneers with his
wife, Joy. "Whether it's for the young and strong or for everyone."
When Staveley first worked the Colorado, the river was for the few.
Boaters showed up in pith helmets, prepared for an expedition. In 1956, Staveley recalled, 53 people ran the river.
For the majority of the more than 20,000 who now raft it, the voyage
into what Powell called "the Great Unknown" has become routine, a
family vacation, guided, catered and planned down to minute detail by
commercial companies ferrying them by outboard motor.
At some of the more popular daytime stopover points, so many boating
parties can pull up at the same time that a couple hundred people will
be milling about.
"You can just be bombarded," said Liz Boussard, a field specialist for
the Wilderness Society. "It's more like a Disneyland experience."
Environmental groups including Boussard's are pressuring the park service to get motors off the Colorado.
They say the rafting customers might change somewhat but there will
still be plenty of them. They also note that it is possible to take
shorter oar trips by hiking out of the canyon at a couple of points and
that more people could be accommodated by stretching out the rafting
season beyond its traditional summer peak.
"The bottom line is you could sell anything you wanted to at the Grand Canyon," Galbreath said.
Certainly there is no shortage of demand for oar trips. Arizona Raft
Adventures, one of the bigger companies on the river, specializes in
oar excursions and sells out its annual bookings in 10 days.
Company President Robert Elliott stands with the rest of the industry
in opposing a motor ban, but he concedes that the canyon's natural
quiet is one of its most singular qualities.
The industry has tried to address the noise issue, Grisham said, by
voluntarily switching to quieter engines and is experimenting with an
electric raft motor.
But they are still motors, say the anti-engine forces, and hardly make
for the primitive wilderness experience they believe appropriate for
the canyon.
Furthermore, environmentalists say the park service has been duty bound
for years to get rid of motors because most of the park's 1.2 million
acres, including the river, were recommended for wilderness more than
two decades ago. Federal law, they say, requires that areas deemed
suitable for wilderness be managed as such, including a prohibition on
mechanized equipment.
Arnberger counters that the motors are legal because the recommendation
was never forwarded to Congress and there is nothing irreversibly
damaging about motorized trips on the Colorado.
Among those who hope that engines will putt-putt out of the Grand
Canyon forever is Kim Crumbo, the park's wilderness coordinator. He
spent 18 years on the river as a guide and ranger and likens taking a
motorized raft trip to being "on this bus with 14 other people. It's a
rush trip through the Grand Canyon."
Crumbo predicts that the engine issue will ripple far beyond the
Colorado. "The push to get rid of motors is gaining momentum now and
will be considered a national issue with very important consequences
for the National Park Service and the wilderness system."
Yet the water fight is about more than engines. The ratio of commercial to private boaters on the river is also contentious.
Rafting through the canyon is highly regulated by the park service --
from requirements that crumbs be swept from campsites to discourage
ants to a cap on the number of user days, defined as one person on the
river for one day.
The user days are heavily tilted toward commercial companies, a
leftover, the park service says, from a time when there were relatively
few private rafters.
Despite the fact that private demand has jumped dramatically, fewer
than 20 percent of the people running the river are in private parties,
almost all in smaller oar boats.
The waiting list for a private permit has 6,000 names on it, according
to Linda Jalbert, the park's outdoor recreation planner. In theory, it
could be nearly 20 years before the people at the bottom of the list
get their rafts into the canyon.
---end ----
To learn more about Mr. Staveley and the plans he and his associates
have for commercializing public lands through public/private
partnerships and similar mechanisms, please see:
http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/comercl.htm
http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/nfra94.htm
http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/nfra96.htm
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- Outdoor recreation 
