Pigeon River (NC/TN) Better Than Ever

American Whitewater and the boating community had a couple of significant wins recently on the Pigeon River, which is on the TN/NC border.

Private Boater Fees Blocked American Whitewater's access staff worked together in mid-February to thwart an attempt by the Cocke County Tennessee Tourism Director to impose a user fee on private boaters.

We called the Tourism Director and were unsuccessful at reaching a mutually agreeable resolution. The proposed fees (on private property where we have legal access)were to use access sites which not only don't exist, but for which there is no land, budget, or building plan for. The money would go into the county's general fund. So, we attended the meeting and asked the county legislative board to reject the proposal because it clearly put the cart before the horse (the stern before the bow?). They voted to reject the proposal and send it back to a committee.

American Whitewater intends to work with Cocke County to develop suitable access sites in a manner that does not require mandatory fees be imposed on private boaters. This will alleviate any access problems while continuing to attract private boaters to visit Cocke County and the Pigeon River.

We would like to thank Cocke County for taking the time to understand our concerns, and the rafting company owners for their help on this issue.

Check out a cool little newspaper article with a bad photo of AW's Kevin Colburn @
[Click here]
[Click here for a Knoxville Tribune Article]

Extra Releases In other Pigeon news, from now until the end of the hydro license, boaters will be able to enjoy an extra day of releases each week of the rafting season (Memorial day-Labor day)!

Four days per week of scheduled releases, and the consistently improving water quality will surely make this run an even more recreationally and economically important resource. The reason for the increase is that the license stipulated that an additional day of releases would be granted by Carolina Power and Light when use exceeded 50,000 individual user/trips per year. Use is now estimated to be near 70,000 per year. A good lesson to learn about forward thinking license conditions!