Just received yesterday 12-23-08.

Brent

GREAT NEWS! Hot off the press! We got a favorable decision and boating is now legal in the Upper Headwaters. Fabulous. While the "devil is in the details" and it is far from perfecto, it is a great inroad and fabulous precedent. Here is the AW link:

[www.americanwhitewater.org]

Brent

I hope you are right Brent, I really do ... the pessimist in me read this from the AW initial assessment: "While the new management plan falls short of our requests for Headwaters access, it does open the door to a small amount of legal boating on a small section of the upper river starting in December 2009, flow levels permitting."

I for one have no idea what this means. What minimum flow? What runs are now open? Will it be one of the USFS proposals we read 2 yrs ago that made it essentially up to the USFS to say when flows are adequate? I am anxiously waiting AW to review all the documents and tell me what it really means. I'm hoping it's a true victory and not just another USFS smoke and mirrors trick to attempt to pacify us; offering in reality very limited real opportunities to boat the headwaters. After I read the AW assessment of the documents, I hope I am still celebrating.
Wes

I'm with you Wes, I'm not doing a victory dance until I hear more about what the decision entails.

Hanley

The USFS press release says this allows "approximately six days of boating per year". What are the chances one of those six days will occur when You can go. These arent preplanned days but days when the flow exceeds 450 CFS.

This doesnt seem to be a functional improvement to me.

I want to see some access on something mere mortals could paddle - sections 1 &2

chris hellmann

"Approximately" suggests to me that the number of days is not fixed, but determined by the water level. To me this might be an acceptable type of arrangement. I'd have to read into it further though.

Chris, are you coming to the rolling session tonight?

Yes, we will be there. Didnt get that figured out until today.

chris hellmann

Well, my initial exhuberance as well as AW's has sombered up a bit. Now the issue is whether to appeal. While there is satisfaction in being able to get in there at all and the finding that there is "no environmental impact" by boaters, there is a bit of smoke and mirrors that I have feared for awhile. If we appeal, we could go back to where we are and no boating for 3 or 4 years. On the otherhand, there are some strong findings that mitigate against closing off the rest of the headwaters, so maybe AW will want to take a longer term view and take advantage of the fabulous probono law firm out of Washington DC who will take this to the end. I think there are 45 days to appeal, so, we all probably should study this a bit more and get some discussion going here and boater talk and out there generally so we can put alot of minds on the issues. I still think we should be pleased that the ball is being advanced despite the rigorous opposition which seems to be driving the Forest Services' position - the so called "social" factor.

Hey ya'll the BWA has an impact on all this and we have banged the gong that we Kentucky boaters care about that run within easy weekend reach of us. They do note those types of comments and it helps when we help. We will likely need more.

Brent