Where in the rutted and muddy tire tracks gouged into the banks of Ozark National Scenic Riverways are the ties to sportsmen's heritage or recreational enhancement?
How is the whine of motors on the Current and Jacks Fork rivers that flow more than 100 miles through the Riverways in the Missouri Ozarks improving the recreational experience?
Why should the National Park Service stand quietly back while 65 miles of unauthorized horse trails are allowed to thread through the park's backcountry and down the river banks, across which the riders gallop into the streams?
That's the vision U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Missouri, has for the Riverways, where park staff currently are going through the thorny and insult-hurling process of crafting a new management plan.
The Republican congressman has vocally led the charge against the Park Service's proposed management plan, one that would impose some restrictions on -- not outlaw-- motorboat use, rein in the undesignated horse trails, and better protect the Riverways' resources. On Wednesday he succeeded in tacking an amendment onto the Sportsmen's Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act that would, if enacted, bar the Park Service from limiting motorboat use. He also promised to take the fight to the other management proposals preferred by the Park Service.
“It’s a shame the Park Service is trying to limit access in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways but I am committed to ensuring the rivers remain accessible. My amendment on The Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act will ensure no new restrictions on motorized vessels will be allowed in the park,” Rep. Smith said in a release. “The Draft General Management Plans proposed by the Park Service will have a lot of support from Obama bureaucrats and big city environmentalists, but my constituents do not want the Park Service further restricting their rights on public lands. Moving forward I will continue fighting any attempts to designate new wilderness areas in the ONSR, close walking and horse trails, limit hunting, fishing, trapping, gigging, close access points, ban camping or other recreational activities in the park.”
Really?
How does unfettered use, whether it involves motorboats or horses, hiking or camping, benefit a landscape? How can a national treasure like the Ozark National Scenic Riverways benefit today or in the long run from E.coli problems associated with horses, ATV ruts run amok, or a party atmosphere that arises come summer with trucks parking on gravel bars in the rivers?
Surveys show that even the boaters are concerned about crowding. According to a 2011 survey the Park Service relied on in drafting its management plan, "Among motorized watercraft users, 26% would have preferred to encounter fewer visitors and 20% would have preferred to encounter more." (Another 17 percent were happy with the number of boaters they saw on the day they visited the Riverways, while 37 percent had no preference.)
And Rep. Smith should not overlook that the Riverways belongs to the American public, not only his constituents. If it truly is the congressman's belief, as his spokesman told the Traveler in December, that "(T)he folks who are using the parks are some of the best stewards of the land that you can imagine," regardless of the erosion, pollution, and unauthorized trail useage, then he doesn't appreciate the foresight or wisdom that went into the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916.
The Riverways' enacting legislation, passed in August 1964, specified that the rivers were being included in the National Park System "for the purpose of conserving and interpreting unique scenic and other natural values and objects of historic interest, including preservation of portions of the Current River and Jacks Fork River in Missouri as free-flowing streams, preservation of springs and caves, and management of wildlife, and provisions for use and enjoyment..."
To use the guise of sportsmen's heritage and recreational enhancement to justify no reductions in motorboat usage on the two rivers is folly and perverse. Our National Park System deserves better.
Traveler footnote: Public comments on the draft management plan are being taken through the end of today, February 7. You can read the 534-page draft plan and comment on it at this site.
Comments
Sorry. I guess I let my conservative side sneak out for a moment.
ecbuck, You mention land taken away...this happens all the time by Gov't. I know here in Nebraska there are many land owners opposed to the Keystone pipeline. Are you going to feel the same when the Keystone right of way is implemented and land taken? To me the issue involved with the scenic river is that it has certain protections to the land that should have been implemented when it got its designation. Now the people who have been misusing the area are now upset because they are going to enforce rules that should have happened since the start. My feeling is it was not managed correctly for so long, that some factions will be upset by a change in management directive. I also am just expressing my opinion and hope I am not offensive.
Doesn't make it right.
Opinions aren't offensive, biggotry is.
I agree with that. Biggotry is offensive. But some of the constituants Smith is protecting are exhibiting offensive behavior. This needs to be addressed not protected.
Actually, I don't see him protecting "offensive behavior" I see him protecting the use of the land that it has enjoyed for generations before it was forceably removed from its owners. Despite Kurt's words that "that even the boaters are concerned about crowding" his survey numbers belie that claim. 74% of those surveyed did not object to the number of boaters. Perhaps "some boaters" are concerned but the vast majority aren't.
Are there people abusing the area. Yes. Should they be stopped, yes. But to take the land and then outlaw what previously were perfectly acceptable uses is wrong.
Wait a minute -- in one sentence you say abuses should be stopped and in the next say those abuses were perfectly acceptable?
Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways. Either the activities that are abusing the land (and river) are going to be allowed ... or stopped. Not all activities that were deemed "perfectly acceptable" by private property owners decades ago are automatically acceptable today on public lands, simply because "we used to do that."
Based on information in previous stories in the Traveler on this issue, it also sounds like there are some activities taking place now on public lands that the previous private landowners likely would not have tolerated. (Examples include allowing anyone to take their ATV's or horses onto the property and make a new "trail" anyplace they choose.)
It's understandable that some local residents are still angry that they were forced to sell their land to create the park, but the reality is they were paid for the property, they no longer own it, and they no longer have unrestricted rights to use it as they please. Trying to define some guidelines for acceptable uses of public land is what this plan is all about.
Sure you can. You can restrict truely offensive behavior (that was offensive before or after the confiscation) like littering, ATV's through the river et al, and maintain the ability to boat on the river, camp, and ride horses which were prior unoffensive uses.