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River plan comment period ends<br>

The Colorado River, subject of an extensive management plan designed to protect the resource into the next decade.

During the first round of public scoping, some 15,000 pieces of correspondence and 55,000 individual comments were received. According to CRMP Planning Team Leader Rick Ernenwein, the response in this second round of scoping is likely to yield more than that once individual comments are gleaned from each communication.

Ernenwein said it’s too early to know the substance of the comments and the course of action that they favor; analyzing that will be the planning team’s job over the coming months. He said they hope to have a final Environmental Analysis Statement, or EIS, released in the summer or fall.

Comments were submitted by individuals who drafted their own correspondence, as well as by those who used suggested responses targeting issues raised by interest groups. Stakeholder organizations also submitted comments, both individually and jointly. Also, the Park Service collected comments at seven public meetings held across the country. All input will be considered in drafting the final document.

“We’re considering all of the comments, and looking at the rationale behind them,” Ernenwein said. “We’ll be looking at the gist of what they say, not at who made the comments.”

The public input part of the plan’s development is now finished, unless the comments lead to a substantive change to the list of alternatives. The current draft plan contains seven alternatives for the upper gorge (from Lees Ferry at River Mile 0 to Diamond Creek at River Mile 226) and five for the lower gorge (from Diamond Creek at River Mile 226 to Lake Mead at River Mile 277).

For the upper gorge, the Park Service’s preferred alternative was Alternative H, which provides six months of mixed motorized use and a six-month no-motor period (September through February). It kept commercial operation at current levels during the high-use period of March through October while increasing non-commercial user days.

The preferred alternative for the Lower Gorge was Alternative 4, which increased Hualapai operations but reduced group size for Hualapai river runner trips. It also reduces pontoon boat operations and spreads trips out over a longer period to eliminate peak use patterns.

Ernenwein said the final EIS could differ from these alternatives though it’s not likely to vary too much from what’s already been proposed. If it does, it would open the process up to more public comment.

“(The plan) could change enough that we would issue a supplemental EIS for more comment,” he said. “It’s not something we would normally do but it’s possible. But that would take a lot more time and effort and we’re not planning to do that. “

The first river use plan was developed for Grand Canyon in 1972. It was updated several times, and was the subject of two lawsuits in 2000-2001. Settlement of one of the lawsuits began the current effort to update the CRMP in the spring of 2002; public scoping meetings were held throughout the country in summer and fall 2002.

The first plan created allocations for commercial and non-commercial river runners, set seasonal use limits and called for a five-year phase out of motorized rafts, consistent with the wilderness recommendation for the corridor.

Legislation was introduced to prevent the use of allocated funds to enact any river management plan that called for the elimination of motorized use. In response to threat of further legislation, in 1981 a revised plan was adopted that eliminated the motor phase out while retaining the increase in user days designed to offset the loss in business that eliminating motors would cause.

When it was revised in 1989, the CRMP retained commercial and non-commercial user days but added non-commercial launches in the summer. It also established a resource monitoring program and set visitor experience and resource condition standards.

The plan was revisited in 2002. In a public scoping period from June 13 to Nov. 1 of that year more than 55,000 comments were collected.

“It’s been a big project with a lot of complexities,” Ernenwein said. “The goal is to develop the best plan to protect the resource.”

According to Park Superintendent Joe Alston, the current alternatives were developed based on several factors.

“There are some fundamentals we have to live with,” he said. “One is carrying capacity. This is an analysis of how many camping beaches are available. That meant studying the competition for campsites and identifying every beach on the river. It’s a given that those on the river expect to have a place to camp.”

They also looked at what’s called “social carrying capacity,” which is a more subjective analysis based on river encounters and how many would result in degeneration of the wilderness experience.

The third, and most important according to Alston, is how the resources are being impacted.

“We throw in all the pubic comments, what we see and do and experience, look at the three carrying capacity constraints and siphon all of that out,” said Alston. “From that we come up with a range of alternatives that are possible and decide whether they fit within those constraints and within those capacities. Let’s say there is an impact. Can we mitigate undesirable impacts through changing launch schedules, limiting trails or campsites or other mitigation measures that protect resources?”

Alston said alternatives are developed as planners compile the information, ranging from zero use to meeting all demand.

“We then develop reasonable alternatives and test them against those constraints,” said Alston.

“This is not intended to have any effect on a wilderness recommendation,” Alston said. “We stated in our assumptions that this was not going to be a wilderness plan. It does call for continued use of motors. Whether it influences anyone to do anything about a wilderness recommendation, it’s not an initiative to designate wilderness.”

He said the lack of a ruling on the park’s own wilderness proposal, initiated in 1979, has nothing to do with the Colorado River Management Plan. “Our original wilderness proposal was initiated in 1979 and was revised in 1993,” Alston said. “It has a long history of not going anywhere."


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