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some days, but when we are ferrying supplies or large groups, several trips or 

 several boats may be required; there are times when access from a different 

 portal may be required. 



The plan also limits a land owner's ability to subdivide his/her property and 

 insure access for the buyers. Land owners find the value of their properties 

 diminished because of the lack of access options. One private property on the 

 wild river, operated as a bed and breakfast and overnight lodge for outfitted 

 customers, was virtually cut off from its clientele. While I don't want to see 

 subdivision of river frontage lands, I do feel landowners should receive proper 

 compensation if their rights to subdivide are taken by denying access to those 

 lands. Private landowners on both the Salmon and Snake River's find that if they 

 were to subdivide, the highest value use of many portions of those properties, the 

 buyer's access to the property would be parceled out as part of the Forest 

 Service's private boating allocation. Although the Forest Service has authority to 

 purchase or condemn for scenic easements to prevent subdivision along the 

 Snake, they have managed to accomplish the same thing indirectly with their plan 

 and avoid just compensation. Of course, they have no scenic easement authority 

 on the Lower Salmon. This is not right and amounts to a taking without 

 compensation. 



By limiting access to those long recognized public highways, the Salmon and 

 Snake Rivers, the Forest Service can now tell us when and how we can reach our 

 private property. The questions of navigability, state ownership of the river bed 

 and public rights of way under R.S. 2477 are not even addressed in the river 

 recreation plan or the body of the Forest Service's Final EIS. While our appeals 

 resulted in a review of the private land access issue, we should not have to go 

 through this again. The private land access language in H.R. 2568 and S. 1374 

 assures that this will not happen. 



Summarv 



Some people want to deny me, my friends and customers access to the river, in 

 spite of language in the Hells Canyon Act that recognizes both power boating and 

 floating as valid uses, one no more valid than the other. The Forest Service 

 attempted to open the door to prohibition of power boats in 1980 and failed. 

 They attempted to do it again in 1994 with a plan that eliminates power boats, 

 both commercial and private, from the very heart of Hells Canyon for three days 

 a week for two months at the very height of the recreation season Even more 

 threatening, is language to extend the control period in the future. 



The effect on commercial power boating is potentially devastating. This is like 

 closing the doors of J.C. Penny's stores for the month before Christmas. The 



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