Sorry to diss your work, but I feel the Chattooga Conservancy has really screwed the pooch with its position. As with the trout fishermen, it is all based on a total fiction which we allowed the forest service to perpetuate for decades, so we are all somewhat to blame for not calling them sooner on this blatant abuse of regulatory authority.


"I don't think unregulated access is acceptible"\


Acceptable to whom? I can gaurantee it is acceptable to those of us who have been wrongly excluded from this river for 30 plus years. See, boats are the way that boaters like to experience wilderness. And we have every bit as much a right to it as the hikers, fishermen, you or anyone else. You know that. You all know this whole issue is a bogus and cooked up  fantasy.

"You can argue that the water level would regulate it, but the fact is we don't have any kind of analysis."

No analysis was ever done to close the river. No other river on USFS lands in the United States is closed to boating. This whole ban was a bogus political ploy from the very beginning that should never have been allowed, so there is no need for further "analysis" to lift it.

"As for all the attacks concerning our motives, everyone who works at the conservancy is a boater. We are by no means anti-boater."  

You have taken a position that is anti-boater per se.

The fact that someone would suggest it's about money is comical.  We all love the Chattooga and we want what's best for it.  

I'm sure you work long hours for little pay out of love for the river. But all environmental groups depend on funding, and in this case it appears that Buzz has decided the trout fishermen and locals are a more important interest group than boaters. How was this decision reached? Folks who belong to the Conservancy seem to have been surprised that this position would appear as from on high, out of thin air? At the very most, any responsible environmental group should have taken a completely neutral position. As it  is, you have alienated a large part of your potential future constituency.


" Now that we've been present in city council meetings and local media, the city is finally taking action and fixing sewer leaks."

Glad to hear it. It is about time. It has only been going on for decades after the Clean Water Act was passed. And the pollution has been going into a National Wild and Scenic River. Why don't ya'll continue your efforts in those areas, instead of trying to exclude other wilderness compatable, self-regulating, responsible  environmentalists from the Chattooga?