Wednesday, April 9, 2003 | 10:54 a.m.
The National Park Service will keep 95 percent of Lake Mead open to personal watercraft, but an environmental group says it will sue to overturn the decision.
The park service's "record of decision," released Tuesday, means that upon publication in the Federal Register, the rule allowing personal watercraft -- often referred to by the trademarks Jet Ski, WaveRunner or SeaDoo -- should be final, barring any court reversal.
Roxanne Dey, park service spokeswoman, said publication in the Federal Register should occur this week.
But the Bluewater Network, a national environmental organization based in San Francisco, said it would challenge the decision.
"It's incredibly disappointing that the park service has decided to sell out Lake Mead's wildlife, air and water quality, visitor safety and natural soundscapes for the thrills of a very small minority of users," said Sean Smith, the group's public land director and a former park service ranger.
"Lake Mead deserves the same protection for its resources and wildlife that all park service units are afforded."
Lake Mead is the only national park lake that effectively has averted a ban on the motorcycle-like watercraft.
Bluewater Network's effort to restrict personal watercraft on the lake and other lakes under park service control throughout the country is more than two years old. The park service's writing of the rules stems from an environmental assessment process begun after the group sued the park service in 2001.
The park service last summer announced plans to install a temporary ban on the watercraft in September 2002, but a countersuit by Daniel Boyle, owner of Marine Products Pro Shop in Henderson, and other watercraft backers blocked the move.
A sign outside Boyle's watercraft store proudly proclaims "We won!"
Discussion of a possible ban cut his usual sales of watercraft in half last year, Boyle said. The shop usually sells about 100 new and 50 used personal watercraft a year.
Boyle said he is looking forward to the watercraft season, which picks up in earnest in April. He added that Marine Products Pro Shop is still looking for contributions to defray the legal costs of the battle, which came to about $45,000.
"The real thing that we accomplished is that we avoided any ban on Lake Mead," he said. "We are very excited to finally get this mess behind us.
"Now it's done, finished, approved, and time to go enjoy the lake."
But Smith, of the Bluewater Network, said enjoying Lake Mead with personal watercraft could endanger the quality of the water, which supplies nearly 90 percent of Southern Nevada's drinking water.
He said the environmental assessment conducted by the park service assumed that water levels in the lake would be at or near full, providing more water to dilute any gasoline spilled by the two-stroke engines used in many personal watercraft.
Smith cited a National Academy of Sciences report that indicates even relatively small amounts of gasoline or other contaminant can be a problem.
"You're going to get some of those pollutants in the municipal drinking water," Smith said.
The park service needs to do "site specific" studies of the impacts of spills, even relatively minor ones, he said.
But the park service has a local ally in the Southern Nevada Water Authority. J.C. Davis, a spokesman for the water authority, said the contaminants that come from personal watercraft are volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, such as gasoline or diesel. Those contaminants usual evaporate and are heavily diluted by the trillions of gallons of water in the lake, he said.
"We continually monitor for the presence of VOCs, and we haven't found them in the intake," Davis said.
Park service spokeswoman Dey said her agency is disappointed by Bluewater Network's vow to sue to keep personal watercraft off Lake Mead.
"Honestly, their position earlier was that our decision to allow personal watercraft on Lake Mead was an arbitrary decision, that we hadn't done the scientific work," Dey said. "We've done that now."
She said more than 10,000 comments both for and against personal watercraft were included in the environmental assessment that Bluewater Network's suit forced.
Ultimately, the park service and the Bush administration made a decision that included Lake Mead's historical role as both a natural resource and as a designated "national recreation area."
"We are responsible for protecting the resource at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area and also providing diverse recreational opportunities," she said.
Dey said the park service believes new, cleaner personal watercraft will eliminate much of the problem present with older models, a point echoed by Boyle, who said 90 percent of the watercraft he sells have the more environmentally friendly technology.
Dey said the park service plans to bar the older models from the lake in a decade.
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