here we go again...wading illegal

[Aden]

I was on Mr. Moore's Switchfisher site and saw this tidbit but can not find more information.  It is dated May 17th 2014

http://www.switchfisher.com/articles/PotomacWading.html

anyone know more?

[Eric Y.]

It sounds like they are making it illegal to wade in the C&O canal due to the specific reference to C&O NHP, but maybe I'm wrong...

[Carl Z.]

The C&O canal boarders the river and provides access from MD.  I wonder if the NPS technically "owns" the river.  There have been threats like this for years.  I've heard of NPS 'copters waving people over to the bank for tickets, but I've never had any personal experience with any bans.  The NPS has put up more signs and trying to keep people safe.  The problem is that for every fisherman who know's what they are doing and respects the river, there are umteen people who don't and all it takes is one to die.  

I wonder how serious they are about it this time.

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[Rob Snowhite]

Once you cross the canal you are in the national park for the entire stretch parallel to the canal. The park service thus regulates the shoreline between the canal and the water. Naked Ned gonna get in trouble.

 

Rob Snowhite

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From: Carl Z. <carl....@gmail.com>
To: tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: here we go again...wading illegal

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders/CAK8gq%2BFNrvjq1-7pUBHvWJ2Zopz7H7dUWJY07xp0m1ws90jqYg%40mail.gmail.com.

[McFly]

Guys you have to see that this is a safety issue, when your wading you don't know where your walking or what's in the water. The Potomac has a pretty good current and the canal has high banks, thick mud and crap in it. I think you guys should use some common sense and stop acting like your on some crystal clear steam in Colorado.

On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 3:41:30 PM UTC-4, Aden wrote:

[Richard Farino]

Whether or not the river is crystal clear or not is irrelevant, and I’d even argue that when the river hits 3ft, the entire Potomac is not only safe to wade in most places, but clear as well.  The fact that you accessing an entire watershed for 187.5 miles is prohibited because of what politicians feel is a “safety issue” is absurd.  Try doing that in ANY OTHER national park and see what happens.

NPS property extends to the mean high watermark, which means anything below that is subject to MD law.  You can be in the water below that watermark so long as you’re wearing a PFD if you’re below the base of Stubblefield Falls all the way to 100 yards above the Brookmont Dam (Little Falls).

Steve is prepping his site for more detailed information regarding the Potomac wading issue.  We’ve been working together and will get the group here details regarding what’s going on in a few days.  Please be patient.

R

Richard Farino

Urban Angler VA | 108 N. Washington Street  2nd Floor | Alexandria, VA 22314 

(703) 527-2524 | fax: (703) 527-3313 | ric...@urbanangler.com    

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[John Bilotta]

Agree.

Thanks,

John 

Sent from my iPad

On May 22, 2014, at 7:40 AM, Richard Farino <ric...@urbanangler.com> wrote:

Whether or not the river is crystal clear or not is irrelevant, and I’d even argue that when the river hits 3ft, the entire Potomac is not only safe to wade in most places, but clear as well.  The fact that you accessing an entire watershed for 187.5 miles is prohibited because of what politicians feel is a “safety issue” is absurd.  Try doing that in ANY OTHER national park and see what happens.

NPS property extends to the mean high watermark, which means anything below that is subject to MD law.  You can be in the water below that watermark so long as you’re wearing a PFD if you’re below the base of Stubblefield Falls all the way to 100 yards above the Brookmont Dam (Little Falls).

Steve is prepping his site for more detailed information regarding the Potomac wading issue.  We’ve been working together and will get the group here details regarding what’s going on in a few days.  Please be patient.

R

Richard Farino

Urban Angler VA | 108 N. Washington Street  2nd Floor | Alexandria, VA 22314 <4E148038-E81B-4BEE-B11A-3BDA4F477DB0[31].png>

(703) 527-2524 | fax: (703) 527-3313 | ric...@urbanangler.com  <439D6D4F-24F4-499F-BBD0-615D9750E934[31].png>  <B1888B5C-A16D-44DB-8BD6-93D34CA1A6CE[31].png>

From: 'McFly' via Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders <tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: <tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 10:40 PM
To: <tidal-potoma...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: here we go again...wading illegal

Guys you have to see that this is a safety issue, when your wading you don't know where your walking or what's in the water. The Potomac has a pretty good current and the canal has high banks, thick mud and crap in it. I think you guys should use some common sense and stop acting like your on some crystal clear steam in Colorado.

On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 3:41:30 PM UTC-4, Aden wrote:

I was on Mr. Moore's Switchfisher site and saw this tidbit but can not find more information.  It is dated May 17th 2014

http://www.switchfisher.com/articles/PotomacWading.html

anyone know more?

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[FlyTimesDC]

well said, Richie. 

On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 3:41:30 PM UTC-4, Aden wrote:

[TurbineBlade]

I agree as well.  The river was clear enough today at low tide for me to sight-cast to carp and snakeheads at one of my favorite stretches in about 2-4' of water...which is remarkable given how urban it is here.  

Thank you for the update Rich -- I'll look forward to your future posts about this.  

Gene

[HeaveToo]

This is sad.

There is the spirit of the law and the letter of the law.  The spirit of this law is to ensure everyone is safe.  The thing is that if the river is at a safe level than it should be allowed. 

I hope that this is straightened up. 

Kind of reminds me of the stupid issues with the Jackson River and King's Grant stuff. 

[Bob Smith]

So all the sight fishing I've done on the Potomac was due to x-ray vision?

[Matt S.]

That sucks. I agree as I think we all do on safety being important but a blanket prohibition on access to all that river all the time is over the top. Was bound to happen, though, and complaining amongst ourselves does no good to change the USPS position. Don't know what I can do, but count me in if there's organized efforts to convince authorities to enact (and enforce) a more reasonable and effective set of regs and laws that allow for public enjoyment of the resources.

[TurbineBlade]

Hey, I've tried and tried to change the positions of the USPS for the past few years and have never succeeded.  The rush, rush, rush mentality, "excuse sir, please don't take our pens.....we've warned you about this before" and "I understand you're unhappy about the price of stamps, but these ones with the airplanes on them are unlimited" as if some some Charles Lindbergh crap is going to magically keep me from wanting to run over people on highway 29 on the way to work. 

Now we can't wear waders?!  Huh? 

Gene

[Matt S.]

Ha. Oops. USPS, NPS. Forgive me I was up at wee hours into a second scotch, reading the internets and TYING LEADERS. (Off to the Elk River, WV today!)

However this raises a question with me.....maybe the postal service could take over the canal parks. Or....maybe they already have.

[namfos]

I think part of the problem is that we have too many lawyers around - attorney members of TPFR excluded of course.

Mark

[Miles]

I don't think litigation is a factor here. I think it has more to do with actual safety and budget issues. Here's the NPS page about the rule, with lots of fun links:

http://www.nps.gov/grfa/planyourvisit/river-safety.htm

A couple of items of note: 27 people have died in the Great Falls to DC stretch since 2001. Three of them died last summer -- which is apparently what prompted the rule. Also note that the ban apparently extends only between Great Falls and DC; Steve may have some information to the contrary, but I didn't see a source for his article.

As for where this ties into budget priorities, here's a Time article from 5 years ago:

"The National Park Service spends nearly $5 million annually on search and rescue (SAR) missions and that doesn't include the cost of hundreds of thousands of man hours that go into these searches. Yet unless rescuees violated a park rule — like trespassing into a protected archeological site, for example — they aren't responsible for the cost."

So before this rule, anyone wading in the Potomac got rescued for free. Now, anyone wading has to pay for their rescues. Later in the article, it explains that helicopter flying time is around $1,600 an hour, so it adds up pretty quickly. It might be a lot more here, since they have to use special helis with quieter rotor noise.

Note that this rule does not apply to boaters, for a pretty good reason: the boating community puts a lot of effort into safety and making sure their people don't get hurt.

When I first moved to DC, I spent five years as a relatively active white-water boater. In addition to learning how to paddle, we had safety classes, and we pushed our boating buddies to take them. We also self-policed like crazy. If you were in a boat without a PFD, you got yelled at. If you were anywhere near whitewater without a helmet, you got yelled at. And if you got in trouble, the absolute last thing you wanted was to ask NPS for help (or, godforbid, the Cabin John Fire Department. (I am not saying the NPS or CJFD are unworthy organizations, just that our attitude as river gods who could link cartwheels in a playboat in Class IV whitewater was that any rescue involving a rubber raft was beneath our dignity.))

The result was that hardly any boaters ever needed rescuing, and those who did were newbies who weren't part of the community. In one memorable case, a couple of tourists rented a 2-person sit-on-top and put in above Great Falls. 'Darling, what's that horrible pounding whooshing noise?' They went down the MD side of the Falls, which is a solid Class V (=most dangerous runnable whitewater). I think they were wearing PFDs, but what really saved them was that it was the annual Potomac River Festival for the WW boaters, and nearly every boater in the area was at Great Falls park that day. (I rolled in late, just after the rescue.) In fact, just about every experienced boater has a story or two about saving somebody who got in trouble in the water -- thereby saving the Park Service a big chunk of change. So boaters get some respect from the NPS: in my time as a boater, I never saw or heard any stories about other boaters getting hassled by the Park Police.

All of which is to say that if wading the Potomac is important to us as a community (and I think it is), part of our response should be to start paying attention to safety. We have a great resource in the Potomac, but we should also respect it as a powerful river that has killed plenty of people.

One thing we can do, and I talked to Dan about this earlier this year, is that we can probably get one of the local whitewater clubs to adapt their safety curriculum for wading and fishing. It would cover things like wading technique, proper equipment, and what to do if you get swept away: how to swim in current, protect your noggin, self-rescue, etc. The cost would probably be modest. If there is interest from other members, I can start working on putting together a class for later this summer. We'd want to do it in lower water, and we would have to get wet. I'll start a new thread along those lines, since probably nobody is going to read this far.

Miles

[Carl Z.]

Miles,  

Thanks for taking the time to write such an informative response.   For those of us who have spent any length of time on this section of the river, (Great Falls down to Fletchers), we have seen the river in its many states and do respect the river.  At the extremes there are those days when you go out and just turn around.  Went out to chain bridge watched the water a bit and turned around because it was just too high to even be comfortable fishing from the rocks.  That was the morning that the boy and the good Samaritan went in.   

When the river hits about 3 feet, there are quite a few good spots between Little Falls and Great Falls, but I have camped out at Marsden Tract (just above the Carderock area) with cubscouts when the water was well over 4' at LittleFalls  and when I warned parents about the dangers and keeping an eye on the boys near the river, I got politely ignored.  Unless you spend time around the river, you don't really appreciate how dangerous it can be. 

Carl

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