Grand Canyon River Access
and the Recreational Use Allocation

(Page 3 of 5)
Page 1 2 3 4 5
 

ACCESS AND ALLOCATION – QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED
Questions regarding access to the Colorado River within the Park and the allocation of its recreational use that the NPS must address in the course of the upcoming river management planning process include:

• How can the resource best be protected and what is the appropriate level of visitor use for the Colorado River corridor within Grand Canyon National Park, given paramount resource protection requirements and very high visitor experience quality goals?

• How should the recreational river use made available be apportioned among competing user groups, including those who seek the services of a licensed river outfitter and those who wish to self-outfit, or conduct their own private Grand Canyon river trip?

• How should private river running permits be distributed? The current "waiting list" system has resulted in excessive and highly unpopular wait times for trip leaders seeking to obtain a permit for their private party. Should forced waits continue as the primary means used by the NPS to ration such permits, or is there a better way? (The waiting list system and its attendant controversy are unique to the Grand Canyon. All other permitted rivers that support multi-day trips in the western United States use some form of a lottery system to distribute private river running permits.)

• What is the appropriate spectrum and mix for the various river trip types or styles to be made available? To what extent should motorized river trips continue to be offered? Motorized trips have been publicly available in the canyon for over the past five decades. Three out of four of today's professionally outfitted river trip participants utilize the motorized trip option.

• How should river trips be scheduled and otherwise directly managed to protect the resource and to produce the best possible on-river experience for the visiting public?

NPS LEGAL MANDATES
How the NPS answers these questions will primarily be a matter of agency discretion. In fact, the NPS has no mandatory duty under any law to allocate recreational use of the Colorado River through the Park. Rather, the NPS must administer the park in accordance with the NPS organic legislation (which created the NPS), the Grand Canyon National Park enabling legislation (which established the Park), and the NPS concession laws. It is the combination of these and other public laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, that informs whether and how the river will be allocated among various user groups, such as those seeking professionally guided tours, those undertaking a scientific inquiry, those who are disabled, and those who wish to participate in their own self guided trips.

The most significant legislative mandate with respect to management of recreational boating on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park is the NPS Organic Act of 1916. This statute charges the NPS with a dual mandate to promote and regulate the use of the national parks “by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of parks, monuments and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment for the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

The Grand Canyon became part of the National Park System in 1919, when Congress expanded and upgraded the Grand Canyon National Monument established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, thereby creating Grand Canyon National Park. The Act of February 26, 1919 “reserved and withdr[ew] from settlement, occupancy, or disposal under the laws of the United States and set apart as a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” land in the State of Arizona under the name of Grand Canyon National Park. The Act further directed that the NPS assume the responsibility for the administration, protection, and promotion of the Park, and required the NPS to grant commercial concessions “for hotels, camps, transportation, and other privileges of every kind and nature for the accommodation or entertainment of visitors.” Act to Establish the Grand Canyon National Park, 40 Stat. 1175, 1177, section 2 (codified at 16 U.S.C. §§ 221 et seq.).

Within the confines of the Organic Act’s dual mandate, the NPS has been given broad authority by Congress to manage parks and to determine what resource use opportunities and levels of use are appropriate on a case-by-case basis.

NPS CONSIDERATIONS IN ALLOCATING USE
Consistent with its broad authority to manage Park resources, the NPS considers a wide range of factors in allocating recreational use. Many who are critical of the current allocation erroneously assume that demand is the only relevant factor for NPS consideration. This assumption, however, ignores the relevant mandates for the NPS’s management of the Park, and also fails to reflect the Park’s long history of administration of recreational use. Demand is only one of many factors that the Park has considered in allocating use of the Grand Canyon’s limited resources.

As required by its organic statute, the NPS regulates the type and amount of river recreation use “to assure that the degree and type of use is sustainable, and that resource impacts are within acceptable limits for long term resource protection.” The NPS also manages the Park in accordance with the purposes set forth in the 1919 statute that established the Park, which set apart the area as “a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” The NPS has explained that “[s]cientific research, public input, historic considerations, and legislative mandates have placed the current levels of commercial and non-commercial user-days at an aggregate level of 169,950” and that it has the right “to add or subtract, allocate or reallocate user-days based on review of all relevant factors.” Accordingly, in addition to demand, Park management has, in the past, based the allocation of use in part on other factors, including: the desired resource protection and visitor experience quality; the condition of the natural and social resources within the river corridor; and historic use levels and their impact on park resources.

Because the allocation is administered “in the interest of the greatest good to the general public,” the allocation has reflected Park management’s long held belief that concessioners provide the best practical means of access to the river for the vast majority of Americans. Indeed, for thirty years, the NPS has recognized the importance of the professional river outfitters and their irreplaceable role in providing access to a Grand Canyon river experience for the majority of the public. This is why the Park has river concessioners.
 
 
Page 1 2 3 4 5