[Awclist] [Fwd: RRFW Riverwire - GRAND WAIT EXPECTED TO INCREASE]

[Thomas Robey]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	RRFW Riverwire - GRAND WAIT EXPECTED TO INCREASE
Date: 	Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:37:46 -0700
From: 	Riverwire <riverwire at rrfw.org>
Reply-To: 	<Riverwire at rrfw.org>
Organization: 	River Runners for Wilderness
To: 	riverwire at rrfw.org



RRFW Riverwire - GRAND WAIT EXPECTED TO INCREASE

February 18, 2006

Grand Canyon National Park has just released a Frequently Asked 
Questions announcement, as the park transitions the non-commercial 
waiting list to a weighted lottery as part of the 2006 re-write of the 
Colorado River Management Plan.

According to the NPS announcement, the park cited overwhelming and 
universal dissatisfaction with the waitlist system as justification to 
change the permit system. The NPS failed to mention the overwhelming 
dissatisfaction with the underlying inequitable allocation between river 
concessions and the self guided public. The waitlist system was only 
intended to work when supply was close to demand. As demand for 
non-commercial river trips has increased, supply has remanded static as 
the park refused to re-distribute allocation levels between the two groups.

The announcement attempts to justify the park’s reasons for choosing a 
weighted lottery. The announcement did not mention the park’s previous 
experience with a non-commercial lottery which was discontinued in the 
late 1970s due to overwhelming public dissatisfaction.

The park admitted that the wait for a non-commercial rafting permit is 
15 to 30 years, but the agency did not mention that rafting hopefuls may 
now have an abysmal chance of ever winning a permit. The NPS announces 
that almost half of the present waitlist members will not be successful 
at obtaining a permit in the next ten years, if at all.

This system is being implemented while individuals who would like to use 
concessions river trip services can book a trip using 1-800 phone 
numbers and online reservations and take their trip this summer.

The park assumes there will be roughly 7,000 applicants for the lottery 
every year. Indications are that the Grand Canyon is the most sought 
after river permit in the country. A river runner’s chance of winning a 
Grand Canyon permit will be even worse than other popular lotteries like 
the Middle Fork of the Salmon and Selway Rivers. The park hopes to 
conduct the first non-commercial lottery later this summer.

By its own admission, the park is attempting to shift self-guided use 
into the dead of winter and away from the prime summer months, when at 
least 87% of river traffic is reserved for the park’s river concessions.

The park intends to transition the waiting list to the lottery between 
2007 and 2011. The park will allow those already on the waiting list to 
combine their groups with others on the list into a single trip, thereby 
increasing their probability of success in the lottery. This gives the 
combined permit holders an advantage over those waitlist members who do 
not chose to travel with strangers but would instead like to travel with 
their own friends and family as they originally intended.

The park’s new river plan will allow summer time use for 15,862 
commercial passengers (crew member bodies are not included) while during 
the same summer season only 2,270 self guided paddlers will have access 
to the Canyon.

Summer trip launches for non commercial river runners increase by 56 
trips to 185 total launches, while river concessionaires have 476 
launches. Non-commercial shoulder trips increase by 56 in the spring and 
56 in the fall, and winter trips increase by 92.

See the Grand Canyon National Park website 
(http://www.nps.gov/grca/crmp) for additional information. For more 
detailed information on the NPS decision to discontinue the waitlist, 
please refer to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), Colorado 
River Management Plan, Volume II, section 4.4.8.2.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RIVERWIRE is a free service to the community of river lovers from River 
Runners for Wilderness. Sign up your friends! Send an e-mail address to 
riverwire at rrfw.org <mailto:riverwire at rrfw.org> and we'll add it to the 
RRFW RIVERWIRE e-mail alerts list. Join RRFW’s listserver to stay 
abreast of and participate in the latest river issues. It’s as easy as 
sending a blank e-mail to 
_Rafting_Grand_Canyon-subscribe at yahoogroups.com 
<mailto:Rafting_Grand_Canyon-subscribe at yahoogroups.com>_. Check out our 
great new book/guidebook special deals and donate at RRFW Store 
<http://www.rrfw.org/store.php>. RRFW is a project of Living Rivers. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------------------------------------------------