I do not have to tell any of you about the disruptions that the Covid-19 Pandemic has caused to our lives and schedules. Until June we were still discussing having our annual GCPBA meeting in Flagstaff the last weekend of September. By July, the decision had been made to have a tele-conferencing meeting that weekend for the Board of Directors instead, and not to offer a general membership meeting because we did not feel that we could meet safely or make an in-person report to the membership as part of that meeting. Your Board of Directors apologizes to each of you for any inconvenience this may have caused. Next year’s meeting is currently scheduled for September 25th and 26th and you are invited to join us for the General Membership meeting on Sunday afternoon, September 26th, at 1.P.M., if Covid 19 restrictions allow.
GCPBA’s Board of Directors held our Zoom Meeting at 10 A.M., September 26th, 2020. Attending were Rich Harter, Rich Turner, Wally Rist and Helen Howard. David Levine, who was on a Grand Canyon River Trip at the time, had given Rich Harter a proxy to vote on any issue that came before the Board of Directors. Three positions on the Board of Directors were up for re-election from the membership as to whether they should be retained on the Board of Directors. The 3 people with the highest vote totals were Rich Harter, Wally Rist, and Rich Turner. All three were retained on the Board. The Board annually elects it’s officers. The Officers for the coming year are:
President: Helen Howard
Vice President: Wally Rist
Secretary: Rich Turner
Treasurer: David Levine
Members at Large:
Rich Harter
We had very regretfully accepted the resignations of John Vrymoed and Blakely LaCroix from their positions on the Board prior to the General Meeting. Since the General Meeting both of them have been reappointed to the Board. And positions have shifted. As of this writing the following is your list of Officers
President: Helen Howard
Vice President: John Vrymoed
Secretary: Blakley LeCroix
Treasurer: David Levine
Members at Large: Rich Turner and Wally Rist
We will be looking for additional dues paying members of the organization to join the Board of Directors by appointment, as called for in the By-laws. Although we have approximately 7800 followers on our facebook page, only dues paying members of GCPBA are eligible to serve on the Board.
Individual Board Members spend time during the year, and just before the general meeting, talking to various people and groups that we work with on issues of concern to our members. Some of the people/groups we talked with and reported on were; various members of the Grand Canyon National Park Staff, Roger Clark of Grand Canyon Trust, Lynn Hamilton of Grand Canyon River Guides, and the owners of companies in Flagstaff that outfit private boaters – PRO, Moenkopi, Ceiba and Canyon Reo. Main areas of concern were/are as follows:
The Escalade— This project proposed a tramway to the Confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado River, among other things. Most of the people in the River community were against the proposal which would have built a large tramway down to within a couple of hundred feet above the Confluence. We worked with the Grand Canyon Trust to support the Save the Confluence group of Navajo people who had home and grazing allotments in the area. That proposal was defeated by the Navajo Tribal Council 4 years ago, and current leadership of the Tribe is still against it. However, that opposition is subject to change depending on the make-up of the Tribal Council, which can change at regular intervals. The Escalade project was first presented to the tribe in 2008, and we would not be surprised if it were to be re-submitted in the future. We must stay aware. Since the Escalade Project was defeated in 2017, the Save the Confluence group has worked to get the original approval rescinded by the Bodeway-Gap Chapter. That has occurred and Save the Confluence support identifying all of the previously uncatalogued religious sites in the area. They propose haveing a bill passed by the Navajo Tribal Council at some point in the future to protect those sites from future commercial development.
Proposed Pump Storage Dams on the Little Colorado River and in the Little Colorado River Drainage. 3 year investigational permits were applied for and granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency in 2019 for 2 dams on the Lower Little Colorado River. A third dam has an application pending before that agency but it has not been granted. All three of these would affect the flow of water into the Colorado River. All the Southwest Tribes, the National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation and many other organizations, including the GCPBA and American Whitewater have filed objections to these proposals. We will let you know if we need additional letters of non-support filed, but we are hoping that with an Administration change, these three proposals will die a natural death.
Boundary dispute between the Havasupai and Grand Canyon National Park —There are no legal actions pending. With the Havasupai Tribal Council and the Park asking all river runners to stay away from Havasupai, we do not expect there to be any more debate on this until that area is reopened to visitation.
Boundary Dispute between the Hualapai Tribe and Grand Canyon National Park— The Hualapai Tribe has twice shut down access to the Diamond Creek Road as numbers of tribal members who became ill from Covid rose. Currently, the road is open and we have heard that they are running their own river rafting operation on a limited basis. We have several members of the Hualapai tribe who are members of our GCPBA Facebook Page.
Request by Navajo Recreation Department to build a large dock below Lees Ferry. A provisional request was granted but, it has to be finished by October 1, 2021. One requirement they had meet, was to have the approval of the NPS and Grand Canyon. They do not have that approval, and currently have not started any construction. Our concern here is that this will lead to small river trips, helicopters, and a similar situation to what has ocurred at Quartermaster Canyon. We are keeping an eye on this process.
As a highlight of our normal meeting, half a day is normally spent with Steve Sullivan who runs the Backcountry and River permit systems for the Park. Because he was not available on the date of our meeting, we had phone conversations with him about what is actually happening with trips being able to launch, and possible occurrences of Covid on the river. When GCNP reopened the river again, they did so at 75% of the allowed private permits. The Park was taking into account: 1.) All the trips that were cancelled during the time GCNP halted all launches; 2.) Private boaters that did not want to venture on the river with the specter of participants arriving well, but coming down with Covid-19 on the river; and 3.) Trips where the permit holder/trip leader and/or many of the participants had lost their jobs and had to spend the time they planned for the river trip, instead looking for work, taking care of kids out of school, or doing home schooling. The Permit Office began by offering everyone whose trip was cancelled the same date in 2022. Since reopening the river, they have been offering every permit holder whose trip wasn’t cancelled, the opportunity to launch on their scheduled date, or to change their trip to the 2022 season. Any permits that were turned back in, were first offered to those who had indicated that they would like to try for permits from the cancellation pool. Any remaining open dates would then be offered to all private boaters in supplemental lotteries, as long as the number of trips launching was kept at or below 75% of scheduled launches. The reason for allowing fewer than the normal number of launches was for caution. With a limited number of SAR and river rangers, GCNP did not want to be in a position of having too few staff members to deal with illness on the river. From the June 15th reopening of the river until today, the Park has had no record of anyone on a private trip getting sick with COVID 19 while on the river. There are anecdotal reports of people cancelling trips a week before their launch date, but nobody seems to have gotten sick on the river.
As of March 1, 2021, GCNP increased the allowable launches to 100% of those awarded. The Permit Office will still give every permit holder the opportunity to cancel and reschedule their trip to 2022, if they have any issues at all with having a safe trip. Both the number of allowable launches, and the opportunity to reschedule at no penalty to the 2022 river season, are subject to re-assessment should the disease vectors change.
What this means for those of us who do not currently have a permit and were not cancelled, is that the opportunity to win a permit in 2022 will be somewhat limited. Out of a total of 503 trips available for the 2022 season, over half of them had already been awarded to those on the old waiting list and those rescheduled due to Covid. The park has already added in some of the extra trips they were allowing for the spring of 2021 and will consider adding additional trips in 2022. The commercial trips going out, have also had their limits of 75% lifted to 100% as well, when their season starts on April 1, 2021. March, April, June, July, August, October and November of 2022 will be particularly full. The good news is that if you are prepared, you can score a short notice trip and make it work well. A group from Wyoming showed us that, with some preplanning, short notice trips can come off easily. From being awarded a permit, to launching at Lee’s Ferry took them 4 days. Their gear was ready, they shopped as they drove down to Lee’s Ferry, finished getting last minute fresh supplies in Page, and launched on time. They had a great trip. If you have a week and have the gear ready, it should be a nail biting “piece of cake”. That sounds like a lot of fun to me.
This letter has gone on long enough, but I’ll continue next month with more information about plans GCPBA has for the coming year. I look forward to working with the Board of Directors to make this a successful year for all of us. Stay safe and see you on the river.
Helen Howard
President, GCPBA