John R. Sweet, leader of the first party to run the Gauley River in modern hardshell whitewater craft, turns 70 on September 27th. Sweet was one of the strongest paddlers of his era, a man whose skills set a standard that others tried to emulate. A member of several U.S. Whitewater Teams, he was a fierce competitor in slalom and wildwater events. Forty years ago John was the first to run what later become known as Sweet's Falls on the Upper Gauley. He was a mentor to many paddlers still active in the area.

The USGS announced today that a number of their streamgages are threatened by loss of funding.  The gages, located in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are scheduled to be turned off on the last day of September of this year unless cost-share funding can be found.

Whitewater paddlers in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia have often used the parking lot behind the Little Sandy Church of the Nazarine to access Little Sandy Creek. This past summer Pastor Chad Harvey told me that parents in his congregation had asked for a fence to keep their youngsters from falling into the river. The church board approved construction, but because they wanted to continue the church's tradition of hospitality towards paddlers they also planned to build a gate. This will allow easy access to the river. American Whitewater wishes to thank Pastor Harvey and his congregation for their continued hospitality.

Friends of the Cheat, with the help of whitewater paddlers throughout the region, constructed a new parking area along the Big Sandy Creek in Rockville, West Virginia. This will provide secure public access to this popular whitewater run. The location is on river left, just upstream of the Rockville Bridge. There's space for over 30 cars here, and we hope that this will relieve congestion on busy spring weekends. The road from the bridge to the lot was also widened and greatly improved. Future plans include trails to several different spots along the shore.

We are happy to announce that Friends of the Cheat won second place in the Redwood Creek Wine Greater Outdoors Project, winning $10,000.  The money will be used to secure land along the Big Sandy and place it in conservation easement.  The land will protect public access to the river as well as the river itself. We would like to thank the many paddlers that voted online in support of the project, Friends of the Cheat for writing a great proposal and taking the initiative on this great project, and of course Redwood Creek Wines for making public enjoyment and protection of awesome places a funding priority.

This spring the Gauley River National Recreation Area acquired the Masons Branch and Woods Ferry access locations. Over the past few months American Whitewater has been working with the Gauley River National Recreation Area to insure that private boaters have continuing access at these critical take-out/put-in locations. Today the park issued an open letter to boaters outlining their plans to manage these access points.

The National Park Service is purchasing property from two West Virginia landowners to improve public access to the Gauley River.  The sites, located at Woods Ferry and Mason Branch, are established put-in and take-out sites for boaters, kayakers, canoeists and rafters along the river between the public put-in at the Summersville Dam and the take-out at Swiss, almost 26 miles downstream.

Last month we alerted paddlers to a piece of state legislation that would have authorized a study of stream access problems and opportunities in Virginia.   The Rules Committee could only support a specific number of studies for 2008, and unfortunately the river access study did not make the cut.  We hope that with broad support the resolution will succeed next year. 

For the third year in a row two groups of West Virginia University students and staff from Greg Corio's Adventure West Virginia program joined forces with Friends of Cheat to maintain vital river access points. At the Friends of Cheat Access in Albright, the job was to harden a badly eroded launch site. At Jenkinsburg, the focus was on trash collection. Both efforts will improve these places for local and visiting whitewater paddlers

Paddlers have been negotiating a new release schedule on Maryland's Upper Youghiogheny River with Brookfield Power and other stakeholders for over one year.  The results have just been released in a new permit for the operation of the Deep Creek Dam.  This year, and for the foreseeable future, paddlers will be treated to upper Yough releases on every Saturday from mid-June through mid-September!