Wilderness, Motorized Rafts, and the Grand Canyon

By Mark Grisham
Mark Grisham is the executive director of the Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association, a non-profit trade group that represents each of the licensed river running concessioners that operate in Grand Canyon National Park. This article is reprinted with permission from the Grand Canyon River Outfitters Association.


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For the past three decades, an intractable controversy has simmered and sometimes boiled over regarding the use of low-powered outboard motors on pontoon rafts running the rapids of the Colorado River within Grand Canyon National Park. Today, three out of four professionally-outfitted river trip passengers, and a number of self-outfitted river trippers, choose to utilize motorized rafts powered by low-emission, low-noise, environmentally-friendly motors.

Despite the significant contribution that such motorized use offers by making a Grand Canyon river trip accessible to a substantially greater portion of the American public than would otherwise be the case, some continue to call for the elimination of such motorized trips. These efforts are linked to obtaining “wilderness” designation for the Colorado River corridor within the Park. It is believed, erroneously, that such a designation would necessarily prohibit the National Park Service from continuing to authorize motorized river trips.

Wilderness and the Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is, indeed, a national treasure. It is a World Heritage Site, which signifies its international standing as one of the planet’s most unique and valued places. Whether by hiking in the backcountry or rafting down the Colorado River, visiting the Grand Canyon is one of the world’s special experiences. Unfortunately, this “crown jewel” in the National Park System has sometimes become mired in a debate, not about proper ecological stewardship, but over whether five decades of motorized use along the river should end. This issue has long polarized groups and individuals that otherwise share a common, deeply held goal of preserving and enhancing the Grand Canyon and its unique river experience.

A common misunderstanding is that the Grand Canyon is a designated wilderness area. The Grand Canyon is not a wilderness area nor does it contain any wilderness areas. Nor is the National Park Service required to manage the river corridor as “de facto wilderness.” In fact, no areas within Grand Canyon National Park have ever been formally recommended, either by the Secretary of the Interior or the President of the United States, for inclusion into the wilderness system.

Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, establishing the National Wilderness Preservation System, to close off certain areas of federal land and preserve their wilderness character. The Act defines wilderness, “in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape . . . as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” It specifies that a wilderness area comprises undeveloped Federal land
  retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

  
The Wilderness Act established a specific process for adding areas to the Wilderness Preservation System. Pursuant to this process, a land management agency (i.e., National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, or United States Forest Service) can recommend areas meeting the statutory definition of wilderness to the Secretary of the Interior and the President. After receiving the Secretary’s recommendation, a formal process exists by which the President makes a recommendation to Congress with respect to his determination regarding whether an area should be designated as wilderness. A Presidential wilderness recommendation becomes effective only if so provided by an Act of Congress. Thus, under the Wilderness Act, only Congress can designate federally managed areas as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
 
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