In a letter sent today, American Whitewater, Merrimack Valley Paddlers, Mount Washington Valley Paddlers, and the New Hampshire Appalachian Mountain Club requested more information regarding a potential new fee for ownership of non-motorized boats in New Hampshire. The letter was sent to Lee Perry, the Executive Director of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, and was cc’d to the members of New Hampshire’s Public Water Access Advisory Board.
Paddlers were alerted to the possible fee system in a November news article. The article describes the fee as a means of making up for a budget shortfall – not a means of providing any services to the paddling community. We have sent a letter to Mr. Perry seeking clarification of several issues that will help us understand the proposal and determine if it is in the public’s best interest.
No bill has been introduced at this time
The letter, sent today:
Lee E. Perry
Executive Director
New Hampshire Fish and Game Department11 Hazen DriveConcord, NH 03301
603-271-3511
RE: Non-motorized Boat Fees
January 18th, 2007
Dear Mr. Perry,
I am writing to open a dialog with you regarding the reported intention of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department to advocate for a new annual fee for ownership of non-motorized boats. American Whitewater is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore our nation’s whitewater resources while enhancing opportunities to enjoy them safely. We have many members who live in New Hampshire and/or recreate on New Hampshire’s superb whitewater rivers. New Hampshire Appalachian Mountain Club, Merrimack Valley Paddlers, and Mount Washington Valley Paddlers are New Hampshire based canoeing and kayaking clubs that also focus on safe river enjoyment and stewardship. All of our organizations have a long history of working on river conservation and access issues in the state.
An article in the Manchester Union Leader on November 15th, 2006 alerted us to a new impetus by your agency to create an annual non-motorized boat fee in New Hampshire. The article described this new fee as a tool to meet a projected budget shortfall. While we are obviously sensitive to your budgetary problems, we have significant concerns regarding this proposal. We offer these concerns as a means of starting the dialog, and hope that you can address them in writing at your earliest convenience.
We have seen several similar proposals to impose fees on non-motorized boats in recent years in states across the nation. None of these recent attempts have been successful because they have been determined to be counter to the public interest. In general these fees have been found to discourage water based tourism, discourage healthy outdoor activities, cost more money than they could generate, provide little to no benefit to the people paying the fee, and be needlessly and unacceptably burdensome to the paddling public. Unfortunately, according to the newspaper article, the New Hampshire proposal appears to contain similar pitfalls.
We would like to ask several questions of you and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department to help us determine if the proposed fee system is in the public interest and acceptable to our membership.
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What are the specific benefits that paddlers will receive for paying this fee? Specifically, how many whitewater and non-motorized-only river access areas does the agency maintain, and how many whitewater and non-motorized boating search and rescue missions has the state carried out in recent years? What percentage of agency funds goes to riparian land protection of headwater rivers and streams (as opposed to habitat enhancement programs, stocking, or easements on non-whitewater rivers and lakes)?
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Would the fee/decal only be required to use NHFGD access sites, or all waters of the state?
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We ask that you provide a detailed budget for the fee program including the estimated numbers of boats and estimated gross revenue, as well as the costs of printing, mailing, decals, administration, tracking, and enforcement. Will these new burdens be accomplished with existing administrative and enforcement staff or will new staff have to be hired?
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How will out of state paddlers be treated in this system, and what are the estimated impacts to water based tourism? We offer that requiring out of state paddlers to put decals on their boats, pay fees for services they didn’t use, and apply for decals well in advance will significantly deter tourism in rural communities and elsewhere.
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How will the state account for the fact that many non-motorized boaters own several boats? While non-motorized paddlers may be charged for many in-expensive boats to use simple river access areas (which may or may not exist in the NHFGD system), motorized boaters will be charged only once (since most own only one relatively expensive boat) yet use large and expensive ramps and trailer-parking facilities. How is this fair?
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How will the state account for the fact that non-motorized boats are regularly (often annually) bought and sold. Will the fee/decal be transferable?
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How will the state create a marking system that will stay affixed to whitewater boats without doing permanent damage to boats?
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How will the fee impact church and civic organizations, university programs, tour operators, commercial angling and whitewater outfitters that own many boats and introduce citizens to healthy water based recreation?
Let me reiterate that we respect and appreciate your agency, and are sensitive to your situation as described in the Manchester Union Leader. Fewer hunters and anglers coupled with increased internal costs certainly creates a challenging financial situation. However, it is unclear how the paddling community is part of the problem or why they should be part of the solution. While we have very little information on which to judge this fee system, based on what we do know we have significant concerns regarding its appropriateness, fairness, and its potential to seriously impact the paddling community in a number of ways. To help us better understand the NHFGD proposal, we would greatly appreciate your response to the above questions. Thank you for your time, and feel fee to contact us if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Kevin Colburn
National Stewardship Director
American Whitewater
1035 Van Buren St
Missoula, MT 59802
406-543-1802
Kevin@amwhitewater.org
Mark Lacroix
Merrimack Valley Paddlers
P.O. Box 334
Merrimack, NH. 03054
P.O. Box 334
Merrimack, NH. 03054
John Jenkins
New Hampshire Appalachian Mountain Club
c/o Pinkham Notch
Rte. 16 P.O. Box 298
Gorham, NH 03581
Ron Taksar
Mt Washington Valley Paddlers
PO Box 806
Franconia, NH 03580
PO Box 806
Franconia, NH 03580
Cc List (via email when possible):
Thomas Quarles, Esq.
Allen K. MacNeil
The Honorable John T. Gallus
The Honorable Joseph D. Kenney
The Honorable Duncan Chaplin
The Honorable John Klose
Roger J. Bellerose Sr.
Paul F. Blizzard
Patricia A. Goodridge
Richard Smith
Maynard Goldman Esq.
Brian A. Giles
B. David Bryan
Cheryl Killam
Jacquie Colburn
David Barrett
Johanna Lyons
Michael Pillsbury
Carol Barleon