Jet Skis will be banned at lake

Stephen Curran

Tuesday, July 23, 2002 | 11:53 a.m.

National recreation areas banning personal watercraft:

Jet Skis and other personal watercraft will be banned from Lake Mead starting Sept. 15, because the National Park Service missed a court-ordered deadline to file an environmental impact statement, officials said Monday.

The ban, which National Park Service officials say will be temporary, will last until the the impact statement is done, which could be as late as next spring.

The study was ordered as part of a lawsuit filed two years ago by the San Francisco-based Bluewater Network. The environmental advocacy group claims the crafts, vessels less than 16 feet long that use an inboard motor, dump unburned gasoline into the water.

Karla Norris, spokeswoman for the Lake Mead Recreational Area, said private consultants hired by the National Park Service have found that unburned gasoline does not present a significant danger to water quality and wildlife.

"We've looked at all the factors and determined it is compatible," Norris said. "We have made a decision we want to maintain use."

The park service is in the midst of compiling more than 10,000 public comment proposals, a task originally planned to be completed by Sept. 15.

The agency applied for an extension earlier this year, which was denied.

Russell Long, director of the Bluewater Network, said the burden of proof ultimately lies on the National Park Service, which he said "dropped the ball."

"We anticipated (they wouldn't be ready)," he said. "The park service said they had plenty of time."

For Mark Newman, service manager at Rec World Watercraft in North Las Vegas, the ban came as a surprise. Newman said he was told that the report would be completed by the deadline and just recently found out that the watercraft would be banned.

"We weren't expecting that there would be any chance of a delay," Newman said. "They said their study was close to being done."

Newman does not anticipate that the ban will hurt sales, which are normally slow between September and February.

However, if the ban continues into the lucrative summer months, sales could suffer, he said.

"Hopefully it will be solved before next season," Newman said. "If it's not, then it could have a major impact."

The ruling means that Las Vegas-area personal watercraft enthusiasts will have to travel to Lake Havasu, Ariz., the nearest recreational area that allows the craft, said Stephan Andranian, government affairs manager for the American Watercraft Association, an Orange County, Calif.-based owners association.

The problem, he says, does not lie solely with the National Park Service, which is only enforcing laws enacted by a previous presidential administration that "didn't care about personal watercraft."

"It's not the park service that will suffer, it's the personal motorized watercraft user," Andranian said. "Because of the actions of a special interest group in San Francisco, boaters in Las Vegas will suffer. It's a pity."

Most of the pollution comes from two-stroke engines common to personal watercraft, Norris said. To combat this the National Park Service is placing a ban on these type of engines effective 2012, when a more advanced four-stroke technology will be available.

archive