[Paddlewise] Saturation Point

Let's turn the discussion to the practicalities of "managing" use of popular
paddling areas.  Let's get specific.  I'll start with my own area.  It is the
Lower Columbia River estuary, a huge expanse of water and islands, tidally
influenced, with a major shipping channel threading through its center.

Most of the islands in this area are day-use only, because the "best" part of
the estuary (for recreational paddling) is part of a National Wildlife
Refuge.  Dotted on the periphery are a couple sleepy river towns, the relics
of a golden age of canneries, gill net drift fisheries, and the days when the
River was the main highway of commerce and culture.  Here and there are a few
"grandfathered" float houses, mainly used as retreats or duck hunting bases.

The islands are managed by the USFWS as habitat for waterfowl, an endangered
species of deer, and assorted minor (non-game, for the most part) critters. 
The entire area is a highly productive duck and goose hunting area.

**Legal** kayak camping is restricted to three places:

1. a small (8 tents max.) pocket beach on the downstream side of a rocky point
jutting into the edge of the shipping channel.  Also popular with steelhead
fishers for 3 months of the year.

2. a municipal park at the edge of the River, where tenters share the air and
sand with RV's.  Capacity for 20 tents of paddlers, on the average.  (Less
when the RV'ers are out in force.)

3. a huge (80 plus acres) man-made sandy island, the result of dredging of the
channel.  There is "room" for a hundred tents on this island.  It is in a
beautiful spot, adjacent to the shipping channel, but 3 miles downstream from
the odor and noise of a large pulp mill, and across the river from a diked
area which is rapidly being gentrified with second homes for the well-to-do.

Paddlers enter this area from three launch spots.  Only one is on public
property, though the other two are "managed" through local custom by the
upland property owners as if they were publically owned.

In this entire area (except at the RV park, which is at the periphery), there
is not one pit toilet or other accepted receptacle for human waste.  Campers
mainly use the "cat hole" method, though a few slobs just poop on the sand and
strew their TP around in the willows.

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Here is my "challenge" to Paddlewisers:  How would you "improve" this area for
paddlers, while meeting the mandates of its status as a wildlife refuge, and
avoiding conflict with the shipping channel?

Would you add pit toilets here and there?

Would you petition the USFWS to "add" campsite areas?

Would you designate a "path" through the islands (and prime waterfowl habitat)
as a "water trail," and promote its use by overnight users?

Would you site a high-dollar "paddle center" at its edge to set up classes,
instruction in paddling, organize overnight trips for hire, and run nature
observation trips through the wildlife habitat?

Or, would you **just leave it alone** and let "natural human use patterns"
determine what happens?

<break>

What will it be?  More regulation or less?  Educate or ignore?  "Hands-on" or
"hands-off?"

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR


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