Grand Canyon River Access
and the Recreational Use Allocation

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The NPS stated at the time that this the new allocation ratio represented the agency’s “best estimate based on experience and on interpretation of the available data.” These factors included the absence of a means to count the number of potential passengers turned away by concessioners because certain dates are full, duplicate applications for private trips, and false applications for private trips. The 1979 CRMP, however, was never implemented. Instead, Congress responded to the agency’s proposal by passing an amendment offered by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to the 1981 Department of the Interior appropriations bill that prevented the National Park Service from moving forward with its proposed phase-out of motorized river trips. In response, the NPS released a revised CRMP in 1981 that adopted the 1979 recommended user-day numbers, a seventy-five percent increase in total annual use over the 1973 level. The NPS’s decision to raise the use level was based on its conclusion that the 1973 use level was not having a significant long-term impact on the river environment.

The 1981 CRMP sought to address private boater concerns by sticking with the earlier recommended 616% increase in user-days for self outfitted trips (to 54,450 user-days). Professionally outfitted boaters were granted a 29% increase in user-days (to 115,500 user-days). The NPS stated that these numbers reflected historic use levels, trip length requirements, increases in demand for the private, non-commercial allotment, and a increase for the professionally-outfitted user sector. The NPS further believed at the time that the new commercial to non-commercial ratio of about 2:1 would more appropriately accommodate the demand of river runners for non-commercial trips. In the process of reaching its final decision, the NPS considered various alternatives, including maintaining use at 89,000 professionally outfitted user-days and 7,600 self outfitted days, increasing use levels more dramatically, and decreasing use levels.

In March of 1987, the NPS began a review and revision of the 1981 CRMP. During the planning process, the NPS identified and considered a number of possible alternatives for adjusting allocations, including reallocating user-days between “the commercial sector” and “the private sector.” In reviewing and considering the access/allocation issue, however, the NPS found that, while the allocation for professionally outfitted boaters was being fully utilized, the available allocation for self outfitted boaters exceeded actual self outfitted boater use by twenty five percent. The NPS determined that this under utilization of the private allocation was due to deficiencies in the private permit system and to the fact that self outfitted boaters were taking smaller and shorter trips than actually permitted under NPS policy at the time. Consequently, when the NPS issued a final revised CRMP in September 1989, it decided to maintain the levels of use and the professionally outfitted/ self outfitted allocation from the 1981 CRMP and to improve access for the self outfitted boating community by addressing the underutilization of the private allocation. It did so by changing aspects of the private permitting system and by modifying certain operational requirements, rather than by reallocating use.

By the end of 1994, the private waiting list, started in 1980, had grown to 4,964 individuals, and the wait for new applicants was estimated at eight years. An internal NPS memorandum noted that “[c]ontinuation of [the] current application/waiting list system will indemnify the status quo and remove any possibility of changing the system for 10 years following the completion of the CRMP review process.” The memorandum concluded that “[t]he current waiting list/permit system has not and is not meeting the requirements of a rapidly growing recreational public and will not improve over time. This system . . . is increasingly the target of complaints due to the unrealistic waiting period.” Unfortunately, little was done at the time to improve the private permit distribution system, despite its growing failure at meeting the needs of the self-outfitted boating community.

In September 1997, the NPS formally initiated the process for revising the 1989 CRMP and began to revisit the allocation issue and the overall growth in demand for river trips. As part of this process, the NPS identified several objectives regarding access and allocation of use: improving access for all who seek a Grand Canyon river trip; evaluating the impacts of current use levels and seasonal distribution of use; and evaluating alternative access systems. Early in this process, Park management observed that, while it would closely evaluate the user day method of allocating use and explore alternative methods of launch scheduling that might improve public access and protect resources, “[u]se levels and distribution between groups [would] not be arbitrarily adjusted based on perceptions.” The NPS also declared that the allocation of use issue could not and would not be addressed in isolation, but rather determined in the context of other inter-related issues, such as the distribution and volume of use, the non-commercial permit system, the appropriate spectrum of outfitter trips and services, and wilderness management. Park management established workgroups to focus on access and on the distribution and volume of use, and implemented a research program, consisting of a visitor use study, observation, and a computerized trip simulator designed to develop information relevant to making decisions regarding access and allocation of use.

The Park Superintendent put this river management plan revision process on hold in February 2000, however. According to the Superintendent, this suspension of the planning effort was necessitated by a “lack of available fiscal and human resources to complete a comprehensive planning effort,” an “inability to resolve many of the issues prior to resolution of the park’s wilderness recommendation,” polarization among backcountry and river user groups and interests that had intensified to the point of affecting the park’s ability to reach an acceptable resolution, and the existence of other projects of “higher importance” that needed to be accomplished and were competing for the Park’s limited resources. The NPS concluded that it could not accomplish the comprehensive EIS with the available resources and that, given the limited resources, there were higher priority items concerning management of the Park that warranted attention.

The decision to halt the Colorado River Management Plan revision process was controversial, and quickly prompted two lawsuits brought by private boaters and environmental groups challenging the NPS’s management of the river corridor. In short, these lawsuits sought a resumption of the planning process, an immediate reallocation of use involving a shift of use from professionally-outfitted trips to privately-outfitted trips, an injunction prohibiting renewal or extension of the existing river-running concessions contracts (which were to expire at the end of 2002) until such time as a new plan could be completed, and the termination of all motorized use on the river. In one of these lawsuits, the parties negotiated a settlement agreement under which the NPS agreed to restart work on the CRMP revision process and implement a revised plan by December 31, 2004.

During the planning process, the settlement agreement requires the NPS to consider, among other things: (i) the appropriate level of visitor use on the Colorado River consistent with resource protection and visitor experience goals; (ii) the allocation of use of the Colorado River between commercial and non-commercial users, the allocation of use between different types of commercial users (e.g., between motorized and non-motorized trips), and alternatives to the current system of commercial/non-commercial allocation; (iii) the impacts of motorized watercraft, potential mitigation of those impacts (including technological improvements to motors), and a reasonable range of alternatives with respect to the current ratio of motorized craft to non-motorized craft; and (iv) the range of services to be provided to the public. This process is now ongoing.

 
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