Dear Fellow Boater,
On August 18th the USFS is planning on setting a precedent that will lead to the banning and/or severely restricting of boating on Federally Managed lands. All boaters need to rally around this issue to stop it NOW! Below is a letter I’ve written outlining how this will happen. Please take a few minutes and post it to as many or your local, regional and national boater related message boards and blogs as you can.
Then e-mail it to all your boating buddies, nationwide, and ask them to do the same. This case will affect every boater in the nation sooner or later. Everyone needs to get involved.
The letter below will explain how.
Thanx – Rob Maxwell
PLEASE POST AND E-MAIL ****************************
TITLE:
USFS Considers Banning Boating in all Federally Managed Lands!
BODY COPY:
Whether you know it or not, on August 18th the Forest Service will establish a precedent that can lead to the banning and/or severely restricting boating in all Federally Managed lands. Yes, your favorite rivers and creeks that are Wild and Scenic Rivers; Federal Wilderness; or in National Parks and Recreation Areas may soon be off limits to all boating.
What’s going on? Whitewater boating was banned on the upper sections of the Chattooga River 30-years ago by a single rouge park ranger, without public comment or impact studies. He simply waived his hand, and it was so. Now 30-years later, politically powerful special interest groups, with significant pull in Congress and the Forest Service are fighting to maintain this boating ban, which should never have been established in the first place.
How does this effect you? The Upper Chattooga “Capacity and Conflict” study, commissioned by the Forest Service, outlines rationale and management practices for severely restricting or banning boating on federal lands. The report is well footnoted with dozens of studies and management techniques from across the nation. If studies and practaces that took place in the north, south, east and west can be used to continue a boating ban and severe restrictions on the Upper Chattooga River, the Upper Chattooga River case can be used against you and your rivers. You can check out the “Capacity and Conflict” study and its array of footnotes here:
Imagine a day when the Forest Service closes your favorite run and says, “They did it on the Upper Chattooga, we can do it here.” There will be no impact studies. Public comments won’t matter. Political pull or a single rouge park ranger is all it will take. The precedent will have already been set on the Upper Chattooga.
How can you help stop this? The deadline to send in comments to the Forest Service is August 18th. If you are too busy to learn all the details and craft the perfect comment letter, there is a link to a well thought out form letter below. Simply add a few personal touches and e-mail it to the Forest Service, the Chief of the Forest Service, and your Senator and Congressman. Its simple, all of their e-mails are also listed below. Let them all know you are against bans or restrictions on any user group, in federally managed lands, without proper justifications and impact studies. Remember, the river you save could be your own.
A form letter:
For detailed facts on the Upper Chattooga boat banning check out these sites:
E-mail your letter, by August 18th, to the Sumter National Forest at:
E-mail the Chief of the Forest Service in DC at:
Ask your Senator and Congressman to write a letter condemning this unjustified boating ban.
Help your boating brothers in the Southeast stop this unjustified ban before you have to fight it in your own backyard.
Thank you
--Rob Maxwell
Atlanta, GA
BoaterTalk 
