[Paddlewise] {FWD} Voyageurs bans personal watercraft

http://www.pioneerplanet.com/news/mtc_docs/033708.htm




Published: Wednesday, May 5, 1999

Voyageurs bans personal watercraft
Few such machines used at national park


If you're headed for Voyageurs National Park, leave your personal 
watercraft at home.
The superintendent of the national park on the Minnesota-Ontario 
border announced this week that the small, highly maneuverable 
watercraft no longer can be operated in the park. The action 
implements a National Park Service policy announced last summer 
directing park superintendents to prohibit use of the controversial 
machines within parks until a final system wide policy is in place. 
Instead of immediately banning them, Voyageurs solicited public 
comment first.

Park Superintendent Barbara West said the park received 217 responses 
and two signed petitions, overwhelmingly favoring a ban on their use 
within the park. ``They can't say we didn't give it plenty of 
thought,'' West said.

She said the decision was based on a number of factors, including 
minimizing impacts between different groups, protecting nesting 
waterfowl and shore birds, and maintaining such aesthetic park values 
as solitude.

Personal watercraft, commonly referred to as jet-skis, have come 
under unrelenting criticism in many quarters. Critics contend they 
are noisy and operators too often drive them exclusively in confined 
areas, bothering other people and wildlife.

While the ban had opposition, West said there have not been many 
personal watercraft used at Voyageurs, a predominately water-based 
park. ``I think people who oppose it (the  ban) oppose it more on 
theoretical grounds than they do reality,'' she said. West said the 
decision to ban their use this week coincided with ice-out on park 
waters. The overall National Park Service regulation, meanwhile, 
still has not been completed.

In April, the National Park Service also announced plans to expand a 
ban on personal watercraft on the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, 
effective May 15.

Under that ban, the watercraft would no longer be allowed on the 
Lower St. Croix River  between Taylors Falls, Minn., and Stillwater, 
Minn., and on a flowage near Trego, Wis.  Last year the agency banned 
use of the machines on the Upper St. Croix except for the Trego and 
Hayward flowages on the Namekagon River portion of the national 
scenic  riverway.

Dennis Lien can be reached at dlien_at_pioneerpress.com or at (651) 228-5588.
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