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The National Organization for Rivers 



The associafion of people who protect natural rivers ar\d your legal righti to visit rivers. 



Publishers of CURRENTS Magazine. 



2/2 West Cheyenne Mountain Boulevard. Colorado Springs. CO 80906 



Phone:719-579-8759. . Fax:719-576-6238. 



Honorable Jim Hansen, Chairman, 



House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Lands 



Room 812, O'Neill House Oflice Building 



Washington, DC 20515 



TestimoTty submitted for the hearing record, for the committee's April 30 

 oversight hearing on Fo rest Servic e management qfHells Canyon of the 

 Snake River. ■-"'■""■■'■"'" "' " ' ^~^»»^''VLlamim^*l^^tmi^^»fm'■keJ 



May 1, 1996 



I, Eric Leaper, make the following 

 declaration, both on the basis of personal 

 experience and on the basis of countless 

 contacts with river canoeists, kayakers, 

 and rafters during the past twenty years, 

 in my capacity as Executive Director of 

 the National Organization for Rivers, a 

 nonprofit association with members in all 

 50 states, and from my work with other 

 similar organizations. 



I would first point out that the Snake 

 River, like almost all rivers around the 

 world, has a V-shaped river bed. As the 

 river flows along in a continuing series of 

 curves, the deep part of the river is 

 toward the outside of each bend. While 

 the water surface may be fairly wide from 

 shore to shore, most of that surface is 

 fairly shallow water. The deep part is only 

 a narrow path. Of course, everyone wants 

 to navigate along this deep path, not off 

 to the side where they might damage 

 their boat on a rock. This is especially 

 true of jetboats, which have hard hulls 

 and motors, and which travel at high 

 speeds. Hitting a rock is particularly to 

 be avoided for them. 



So it's not like driving down the high- 

 way, where you can drive on the right- 

 hand half of the pavement, and the 

 oncoming vehicles can drive on the other 

 half. It's more of a narrow path, best 

 suited for one-way traffic. As the jetboats 

 come upstream and the non-motorized 

 boats go downstream, a two-way traffic 

 situation is created. And as the jetboats 



go downstream, they are frequently 

 passing the non-motorized boats, since 

 jetboats go much faster. In both cases, 

 the jetboats are loud and intimidating to 

 the people on the non-motorized boats, 

 and the jetboats have more of an inher- 

 ent need to occupy the deep part of the 

 V-shaped riverbed. The people on the 

 non-motorized boats are aware that a 

 jetboat is a heavy object moving at high 

 speed, with no actual brakes, and that 

 when it is coming upstream through 

 rapids, it needs to maintain momentum. 

 If the jetboat operator is courteous and 

 alert, the encounter between the boats 

 can go smoothly. But if the operator is 

 careless or inattentive, the encounter 

 could result in injury or death. In any 

 case, the people on the non-motorized 

 boats feel obliged to move aside into the 

 shallower water while the jetboat goes 

 roaring by. 



The net result is that jetboats are 

 inherently an imposition on the non- 

 motorized boaters. There is an inherent 

 inequality in the encounter, the non- 

 motorized boats being in an inferior, 

 vulnerable position. 



For these reasons, river runners an- 

 ticipate a trip on this river with mixed 

 emotions. Dealing with the jetboats is a 

 fundamental drawback to this river. Even 

 though it is a large and very beautiful 

 river, I have only run it once myself, pri- 

 marily because of the motors, and the 

 rest of my family has not seen it at all. 



