Grand Canyon National Park Adds Public Meetings On
Colorado River Management Plan Revision

Public Comment Period Extended to Nov. 1st, 2002

August 26, 2002

Dear Grand Canyon River News Subscriber:

The National Park Service announced recently that it will conduct two additional public scoping meetings, one in San Francisco and one in Washington, DC, to gather public comment as part of the on-going Colorado River Management Plan revision process.

Meeting dates and locations are yet to be determined and will be announced shortly.

The NPS has so far conducted five such meetings in Denver, CO; Salt Lake City, UT; Flagstaff, AZ; Las Vegas, NV; and Phoenix, AZ. These meetings drew a combined approximate total of 850 people. According to Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Joseph F. Alston, the meeting format "lent itself to helping everyone realize the complex issues [the NPS] faces" in updating the Colorado River Management Plan.

Public Comment Period Extended To November 1st

Additionally, the NPS has extended the official public comment period for the Colorado River Management Plan to November 1st, 2002. Until that time, Grand Canyon National Park will accept written public comments on the many river-related issues, such as:

· the appropriate level of recreational visitor use along the Colorado River;

· the allocation of that use between professionally-outfitted and self-outfitted groups;

· whether low-powered motorized pontoon rafts should be banned;

· the non-commercial river trip permitting system;

· the level of motorized versus non-motorized use (if motorized use remains); and

· the range of professionally-outfitted services provided to the public.

The Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association encourages you to get involved in the CRMP revision process. For more information about the planning process and the issues, please visit www.gcroa.org. Learn about the issues and mail your comments directly to the park at:

CRMP Project
Grand Canyon National Park
P.O. Box 129
Grand Canyon, AZ 86023

National Park Service information about the CRMP revision process can be found at www.nps.gov/grca/crmp. To place yourself on the park's CRMP Newsletter mailing list, mail a request with your name and both your e-mail and physical addresses to grca_crmp@nps.gov.

Here are a few of the issues we hope you will care about.

Who Gets to Go?

The CRMP revision will specify who gets to go on Grand Canyon river trips in the future. A common argument voiced by private boaters, who want to take trips away from professionally-outfitted passengers to use for themselves, is that people who need or prefer the services of a professional outfitter "don't deserve" Grand Canyon river trips. For more information about the recreational use allocation issue, please go here.

How Much Public Access?

This year, as for each of the past fifteen years, about 19,000 visitors will enjoy a professionally-outfitted Grand Canyon river experience. Proposals now under consideration by the National Park Service could reduce this visitation to as little as 9,000 or even 7,000 per year.

How Long Is Your Vacation?

For five decades, inflatable rafts powered by small outboard motors have plied the Colorado River within Grand Canyon National Park. Such watercraft make a full Grand Canyon river trip possible in six to eight days. Today, this is the trip of choice for three out of four visitors. Yet some want to ban motors and replace all such trips with a much smaller number of thirteen to sixteen day trips. For more information about the wilderness/motors issue, please go here.

In the coming weeks, look for additional information about the issues and the process coming from this Grand Canyon River News Bulletin Service. Please take a few minutes to consider the issues and get involved.

The Grand Canyon's future is yours to make!

This Grand Canyon river news update was brought to you by the Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association, a non-profit trade group whose members include the sixteen professional river outfitters who provide public whitewater rafting trips in Grand Canyon National Park. Formed in 1996, GCROA works with the public and the media to provide information and to answer questions about Grand Canyon river running and related issues. Please visit www.gcroa.org for more information.