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scenic river boundary to the recreation area's north boundary at the Oregon/Washing- 

 ton state line. This segment was identified as "Study" in the 1975 Act. The National 

 Park Service completed the study in 1980, recommending designation as scenic. 

 When Congress elected to take no action on the recommendatiqn, the study protection 

 eventually expired. After applications were filed to build a dam at Asotin, Washing- 

 ton, legislation was passed prohibiting dams in this segment of the Snake. 



Navigation on the Snake 



This wild and scenic river has a long and colorful history of navigation by motor- 

 ized river craft. The first paying passengers to go up through its rapids on a motor 

 boat made their journey on the 11 foot stem wheeler Colonel Wright in 1865. The 

 136 foot Shoshone steamed through the canyon from Boise to Lewiston in 1870, 

 followed in 1895 by the 165 foot Norma. The mining boom-town of Eureka was 

 served, first by the Imnaha, a 125 foot stemwheeler that fell victim to the Snake in 

 1903, and later by the Mountain Gem. In 1910 gasoline powered craft began moving 

 people, produce and supplies in and out of the canyon, with its many mines, farms and 

 ranches. The first contract for regular mail delivery was signed in 1919, and the mail 

 has been delivered ever since. The Corps of Engineers began blasting rocks and im- 

 proving channels in 1903, working continuously until 1975 to make the river safer for 

 navigation. While navigability for title purposes has never been adjudicated, no one 

 has ever seriously suggested that the river was not navigable, a public highway with 

 its bed belonging to the respective states. 



Jet Boats, Fact and Fiction 



While water jet propulsion predates Fulton's steam boat, modem jet boats didn't 

 begin replacing propeller driven river craft in Hells Canyon until the early 1960's. 

 The very name, "jet boat" generates visions of roaring jet aircraft engines and tremen- 

 dous speeds. This couldn't be further from the truth, but there are so many misunder- 

 standings that we should take a moment to explain what jet boats are and what they 

 aren't. 



Instead of having a propeller mounted below the craft's hull, the jet boat pulls 

 water through an intake grate in the bottom near the transom into an axial or mixed 

 flow pump housing inside the boat. The water passes through an impeller and exits 

 under high pressure via a nozzle at the rear of the craft. It is steered by turning the 

 nozzle and reversed by dropping a device over the nozzle's end, diverting water for - 

 ward tmder the boat. Since nothing projects beneath the boat, it can run in relatively 

 shallow water; there is no propeller to strike rocks or injure swimmers and marine 

 mammals. It does not ingest gravel fi-om the river's bottom iuid spill it out the nozzle, 

 as was suggested at an earlier hearing before this august body. Gravel can ruin the 

 impeller and other pump parts in seconds. 



