Re: 50-50 allocation: safety and environment

Judy Zachariasen (judyz@gps.caltech.edu)
Thu, 9 Oct 1997 10:39:47 +0600


>I think it's time for a reality check on this issue, too. Harding
>commented supra that he was sometimes surprised at how few people died
>running rivers. I'm not. It's a safe sport. Wear a tight lifejacket, put
>on a wetsuit when it's cold, stay off cliff faces, think about arroyos and
>slot canyons, stay out of the kitchen, don't drink; and you damned near
>can't die or even get hurt much on the commercial western rivers. The
>generally unspoken rule by which reputable professionals operate is that
>you don't run rapids that you wouldn't let your weakest passenger swim.
>"We're safe now, boys. We're on the river."

Hope you haven't just damned yourself to getting hammered on your next trip
- I wouldn't tempt the river gods by saying I couldn't get hurt on the
river. That's just asking to get spanked. That said, I agree, it's a pretty
safe sport if you take reasonable precautions. But, safety isn't just about
dying. I mean it in a broader way, to include wraps and flips as safety
incidents, even if nobody gets hurt. I think a trip that has four flips is
more of a safety concern than one with no flips, even without an injury
(taking into account boat size etc). This is not to say the best boaters
can't and don't flip - of course they do, but when I hear about a trip that
had four flips when other trips weren't having them, I start to question
the skills of the boatmen (especially if it was the same boatman for all
flips!).

>
>It isn't as if someone like Dave Yeamans lost his brains, his abilities,
>and his commitment to the earth when he hung up his pliers and reverted to
>being a "private" boater. It's not as if Ben Harding's commitment to the
>Canyon and the people who run or want to run it is enfeebled because he
>never got paid to take a boatload of dudes through.

I was clearly not referring to individuals, having expressly said so. Of
course there are private boaters whose skills are equal to or better than
many commercial boaters, duh. As I already said, I was interested in
discussing whether OVERALL there would be a noticeable difference. Also, I
hardly think using an ex-commercial guide as your example of why private
boaters are as good as commercial boaters makes much of a point. All
commercial guides are private boaters when they're not working a trip. What
you were saying before was totally useful - why did you go off this deep
end?

Let me add, that my experience on the Middle Fork and elsewhere is that
overall commercial boaters are better than private boaters and get into
fewer problems. In other words, I think not only is the standard deviation
less, but the peak is also shifted. Just my experience - apparently not so
in Dinosaur. I have also seen (and worked with) some BAD commercial guides.
It pisses me off because people pay good money to have good guides.
Obviously there's a learning curve, but some are just bad and destined to
stay that way. Fortunately, in my experience, this has been relatively
rare. It has been less rare to see BAD private boaters.

This is not, OBVIOUSLY, to say that there are not private groups that go
down that know exactly what they are doing and have all the skills
necessary to manage whatever might come up. However, the people I have seen
who haven't a clue what they are doing, have K-mart "rafts", don't wear
life jackets, can't read water, don't know what an eddy is let alone how to
catch it, are not commercial guides. I have had to help rescue many private
boaters over the years because they did not know how to rescue themselves.
Commercial guides have certainly gotten into trouble, wrapped etc (though
in my experience less often than private boaters) but they have always
known how to deal with the rescue. This is what I am talking about. I think
there is probably no difference between private and commercial boaters at
the top end of the spectrum, but I suggest that at the bottom end there is
a disparity. This is based on my experience commercial boating for 18 years
and private boating for 27 years. I can assure you that when I first went
on a trip on the Green River when I was a little kid, we had several people
running rafts who didn't know what to do in the event of a problem. My dad
was in charge of one raft - he'd never been on a river trip before. That is
what I am talking about. That does not happen on commercial trips.

I've already mentioned my experience with respect to resource protection. I
think it is similar to the safety issue. At the top end there is no
difference, but at the bottom end I think there might be. I haven't seen
wholesale soaping up by the group in Sunflower hot springs on commercial
trips, but I have seen private trips doing it. I have found individual
commercial passengers on my trips soaping up in creeks, and told them to
stop (they had already been told by the ranger, but had somehow not
absorbed that lesson - hmmm). If there is not someone on the trip who will
tell them to stop, they won't. If a private trip is composed of people who
don't give a damn or don't know, then no-one will stop anyone. I don't know
of commercial companies that do not have any guides who know these things
and care about them. This is not to say there aren't any - I don't know all
commercial companies in the world - there may be some really shitty ones.
But I have not seen it.

>
>With regard to revising the CRMP, these issues are red herrings. You don't
>write a river plan around prejudices about which entirely arbitrary
>category of user is supposed by you to behave better or worse as a class
>than some other, equally arbitrary group. To see why not, substitute
>"women," "blacks," "men" or "hispanics" in arguments for changing
>allocation or demand-response systems based on the supposed characteristics
>of certain classes river runners.

Well, some of your comments were useful, comparing what you'd seen on one
river, but this last paragraph is bunk. It's totally different asking to
compare the overall relative abilities of a group that boats all season
every season, and a group that by and large does one or a couple of trips a
year, than saying lets compare blacks and whites. You're trying to turn
what I was discussing into some assualt on me and that is just so much
crap. Rather than suggest what I'm talking about is like comparing the
skills of blacks and whites, let's choose something that even remotely
represents what I'm talking about, like maybe comparing truck drivers'
driving skills to those of people who live in Manhattan and rarely use a
car except to take a Sunday drive every couple of months. That's what I'm
talking about, and that is abundantly clear, and anything implying
something else is drivel.

Secondly, I didn't say anything about writing a river plan around these
variabilites (which are NOT arbitrary prejudices). I specifically said I
didn't think that should influence the allocation of user days. I just
said, what do people think about this issue. Clearly, it pushed your
defensive button. Jeez - I'm a private boater too, you know, so chill.

Resource protection and safety are
>actually administrative issues, and are solved administratively: by
>drafting minimal and sensible regulations about equipment and conduct; by
>teaching, warning, citing, arresting; and by modeling, training, rescuing.

That's certainly a good way to do it. I might add that currently, on most
rivers, commercial guides need training and licensing but private boaters
need not show any proof of experience at all and in fact don't need to have
any experience. It is suggested that they have it, but it is not required.
I think that's bound to lead to some totally inexperienced private boaters.

I wonder if we can discuss this without getting defensive. You seemed to be
doing so at first, talking about your experience in Dinosaur where you saw
little difference overall, but then you wigged out. If it's too upsetting
to people to consider the effects of various changes, let's just forget it.

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