Recent email to Jason Foley from Gene Counts. Please paste and post to our Congressmen:
Brent




Jason:

To answer the concerns you posed about our future I have summed up(realize I was much too wordy the other day):

I talked to the planning director of the Corps a few days ago. The Corps has the future of us paddlers and sportsmen(tourism) in the palm of their hand and they could squeeze us. They have in the past. Since the meeting in Elkhorn City six years ago they have been very cooperative. They have no desire to squeeze us, just the opposite.

They didn't have to tell me they were going to meet with us in April 2008 re the Russell Fork, they could stonewall for years. They didn't have to tell me about the briefing with Congressmen Hal Rogers and Rick Boucher in two more weeks. The chief didn't have to give me the $500,000 estimate for doing a basin-wide study. The $500,000 figure is from last year. They are still crunching numbers for this year(two weeks from now).

I now trust USACE 100%, they really want us to succeed and they want to work with us to see that we do.

We can help the Corps and we can help ourselves by getting on Google and asking for contact info for Cong Hal Rogers and then Cong Rick Boucher.

Paste the following statement:

"For 2008, please expedite the basin wide study of the Russell Fork River as described in the fact sheets of the US Army Corps of Engineers. It is my understanding this study will cost approximately $500,000 over a 24 month period. If you could expedite this study, by increasing the planned appropriation($200,000) the first year, it would help the economy of this depressed region".

I promise the whole thing will take less than two minutes per congressman.

gene

Contact info
Hal Rogers

Addresses and such at the bottom of page
Rick Boucher

As an immediate request for how the Corp can help us out as paddlers.....

it would be great if they could set up either a website update or an anwering machine recording like the Green or the Pigeon and just let people know what their plans are.

For example, it would be great if I could call a number right now and hear a recording say "We will release 300 cfs through the weekend.

Thanks for posting this Brent. This was a direct response from my request to Gene on letting the public know what we can do to help the situation. I was aware that there is an amount of time we have RIGHT NOW to voice our opinions. This time it appears our voices really matter on getting these extra releases.

A BIG hand to Gene who is the driving force on making the summer (and October Friday) releases happen. It appears that the momentum might have shifted in our direction for now so we need to make our voices heard. The first appropriations are all we need this year not the entire amount so get those letters/emails sent.
Make sure to post the quote from Gene above on your version of the letter. There may be a need for more letters in the future so stay tuned for developments coming from Gene.

I 'll get everybody who writes one a free beer at the NPFF!

300cfs is great for hard boaters but what does it really do for commercial rafting? As a hard boater, I'm obviously on board for 300cfs - if that's the best we can do - but as a resident of KY who would like to also see mainstream tourism benefit, the 300cfs level is just not optimal. I still do not understand why we have set our sights on that low of a level?
barryg

As a former career whitewater professional, I can say that I think the commercial potential for whitewater rafting on the Russell Fork is very limited, outside of a seasonal release. Part of the problem is the mindset and expectations of whitewater rafting guests which are different from that of boaters. The Upper and Lower fork are basically a float trip with little in the way of excitement or entertaining rafting. By itself this is marketable, float trips sell too, but they don't bring top dollar and they won't support an industry in a remote area where people aren't already drawn in by other tourist attractions. At best, I'd say one or two rafting companies may be able to eek out a slim living on that kind of business.

In order to make rafting profitable, you need to either keep the ratio of guests to guides high or charge a lot for trips. On the Upper and Lower you would have two options. You could possibly put a lot of people in big rafts, but it would make trips much less appealing. Alternatively, you could do guide-escorted self-guided trips in small rafts and ducks like on the Nantahala. Ratio on the Nanny is about 15 to 1 with a minimum of 2 guides a trip. A format like that could work, but wouldn't necessarily need a big volume release.

The Gorge is, of course, spectacular, but it lacks the appeal of popular rivers like the Ocoee, New and Gauley for all but the most savvy of whitewater guests. It also tends to be very expensive to run trips there since you need small rafts and guest to guide ratios typically run somewhere around three to one or four to one. Additionally, in my expeirence, rafting guests on the Gorge usually don't understand the risks and danger involved and tend not to take it as seriously as they should.They get really impressed by El Horrendo, but places like Maze that pose a much bigger danger to rafters than to kayakers leave them unimpressed and, therefore, vulnerable. The combination of a high price tag, limited market, and high-risk environment really lends itself more to the kind of seasonal release marketing that exists currently.

So, what I'm saying in a nutshell is that while there is some potential for commercial rafting on the fork, it is fairly limited. I am sure there are folks willing to give it a shot with whatever the ACOE will give them. Someone is always willing to try and run a rafting company if there's moving water. Regular summertime releases would make a big difference, but I would probably look at what makes a decent ducky level on the Upper and Lower for float trips more than anything else, and I suspect that 300 is probably enough to do the lower in ducks. In any case, rafting interests are usually able to voice their own concerns and usually get more attention than boaters because of the commercial potential that rafting brings. Therefore, unless someone has more specific demands, I'd recommend going ahead with pushing for more 300 CFS releases through the summer and not worry too much about the need to try to get more water to support rafting.

Hanley you are spot on. The RF Gorge was commercially rafted in the early days until the death tally for both guides and customers became too great to be ignored. In those days the price for a customer to raft was about $200/trip and customers had to prove their experience (at least with the more reputable companies). ASFAIK, these days there aren't any commercial rafting companies who take customers down the Gorge.

Rafting on the Upper and Lower RF at 300cfs seems tough to me - even in duckies. But at 800cfs its clearly commercially viable. Add in the warm temps of summer and all the other attractions of the area and the RF could become a true mainstream whitewater destination. While a handful of hardboaters lobbying a Congressman are a good thing - imagine if a commercial entity (or several) with the potential to bring in much bigger bucks were to lobby as well?

I dunno, if we are going to ask for water at all why not just go for the gold and seek 800+cfs releases?
barryg

to me you also consider a mass in / mass out scenario. I personally would prefer 5 days at 300 during the summer as an alternative to the Ocoee as opposed to 2 days at 750 when you factor in the higher risk associated with them not being able to meet water demands as consistently for higher releases.

Take last summer for example, I don't think we can rely upon the COE to "hold" water for very long waiting for enough to reach a 750cfs release. Asking them to release less in those cases is just another variable in the equation. They are concerned to a degree about not having enough extra water above summer pool to begin with.

I think "gold" might be different for different people. My "gold" would be a higher amount of lower water releases compared to fewer weekends of 800+. In addition to more weekends...lower water is a great place for folks to do some class4 creeking even though they aren't near ready 800.

Bingo!

Clearly it don't rain like it used to throughout the SE, worse in the deep SE, but we're not "normal" the last few yrs either. Does the lake year in and year out consistantly have the water to release 800cfs every weekend? And can a rafting company stay alive just on weekend trips alone? I've never seen the upper or lower at 300cfs, so not sure how to gauge how they would do for duckies at that level, but folks were scraping down the Tuck last summer in duckies by the hundreds... and that river has much less to offer re: scenary / fun rapids as the RF. Of course, there's tons of tourists in the area anyway for the Tuck all summer, but isn't that the point? Attracting them from somewhere else?

IMO, we need more 300 cfs releases and as stated earlier, if it will get us more river days, why ask for fewer 800cfs days? Or a compromise, 300 Fri / Sat, and 800 on Sun provided there is enough water for 800 cfs summer releases.

Wes

To answer Wes's questions:

* ...can a rafting company stay alive just on weekend trips alone?

Yes, if they can depend on the water being there. However, "survive" is the key word. You're not going to pull the tourists in on your own strength.

*...Does the lake year in and year out consistantly have the water to release 800cfs every weekend?

No. Categorically not. If the lake were tasked only to provide downstream recreation in the absence of all other concerns, maybe, but I doubt it.

*...Of course, there's tons of tourists in the area anyway for the Tuck all summer, but isn't that the point?

The Tuckaseegee benefits from the large amount of tourist traffic already in the area and the close proximity to large populations and major thoroughfares. It could not pull in a buttload of tourists on it's own.

At this juncture I would like to illustrate some of my points with a live example, the Cheat. The Cheat is a fantastic river, comparable to the Gauley, but it's in BFE and the conditions are less than ideal for rafting. High water in the spring, it it rains a normal amount. Duck trips in the summer while the water holds. Most importantly, NOTHING else in the area to draw people or make them want to stay more than a night. Most people don't even do that. Fact is, the Cheat is basically a failed rafting river. There was big business there fifteen years ago. The Cheat earned it's popularity back in the old days when sex was safe and rafting was dangerous.The popularity of the Cheat peaked in the early nineties when companies were still taking six or seven trips down river every Saturday throughout March, April and even early May.

By the mid-nineties the Cheat was in sharp decline as the demographic of rafting customers changed from manly-men-doing-manly-things to families with kids. March trips almost completely evaporated, not just on the Cheat but all over. For a while the spring high water kept the early spring business at an acceptable level in the weeks before memorial day, but families want to know what they're getting, not show up and see what the water level is. Additionally, the complete unwillingness of the locals on the Cheat to buy into the tourist trade during the heyday of the cheat rafting business now proved fatal. People rarely stayed overnight and if they did, it was just to sleep.

Of course you can go there today and still find a few companies valiantly hanging on, but business is not brisk and the return is low. Repeat business is minimal due to the unpredictability of the water, so the expense of finding and booking customers is high. There will probably always be someone there willing to take you down in a raft or duck for a few dollars, but it's not the kind of business that supports the local economy.

So, how does this relate to the RF? After all the locals in Elkhorn City are more actively trying to cultivate a tourist business and the Breaks Interstate Park does provide a limited base flow of tourists. However, the entire area is not on board like Elkhorn City is and there isn't a major draw to push the flow of tourists significantly higher. The fall release at 800 brings a limited number of rafters in, but the Gorge isn't capable of supporting the kind of traffic that the commercial juggernauts of the rafting industry do (Ocoee, Nantahala, Pigeon, New, Gauley). Any more large scale business operation there would probably have to be based on day trips on the Upper and Lower. Predictable flows could make this a reality, but I still think that it's more accurate to say that the local economy could support a local rafting trade more so than the idea that a thriving local rafting industry could support and build the local tourist economy.

In the end, it's probably a good idea to get the input of local rafting interests. However, if it were me, I would not concern myself too much with that. Historically, rafting interests are usually given more voice in these matters than boaters. In other words, they can speak for themselves without us trying to second guess what they want.

Hanley