Chattooga Headwaters Update

American Whitewater expects to receive the USFS decision on whether or not to lift the ban on boating 21 miles of the Wild and Scenic Chattooga River no later than April of this year.  The decision will come at least 6 months past the agency’s legal deadline, however American Whitewater has chosen to accept this delay.  We feel that granting the USFS adequate time for analysis of our appeal of the 2004 decision to continue the boating ban will only improve the chances of a fair and favorable decision.  Our volunteer attorney, Nathan Galbreath of Patton Boggs, has been closely monitoring the progress of the USFS decision making process.  We are anxiously awaiting this Nationally significant decision. 

As a Chattooga Fun Fact – we have included the below table from a recent study done by the National Park Service and American Rivers.  Non boating recreationists using the legally boatable sections of the Chattooga were asked how seeing kayakers on the Chattooga affected their visit.  51% of respondents indicated seeing kayakers had no effect, 43.4% indicated that seeing kayakers increased their enjoyment, while only 5.8% of respondents indicated that seeing kayakers decreased their enjoyment.  These data refute the Sumter National Forest’s claims that kayaking significantly impacts other recreationists’ experiences.  This is just one example of 100 pages of support for lifting the boating ban that we compiled in our appeal of the boating ban. 

For more information: http://www.americanwhitewater.org/archive/article/1127/