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Show Scn.Oarn opposgo iiiucr (jon In a strongly worded statement, state-ment, U.S. Senator Jake Gam charged that the National park Service (NPS) "has not made a case" for proposed propos-ed restriction on use of the Colorado River below Lee's Ferry in Arizona. Gam said the proposed restrictions re-strictions would detract from the attractiveness of recreation recrea-tion in the Southwest and damage Utah's tourism industry. in-dustry. In addition, "a great many of my constituents take advantage of the unparalleled unpar-alleled recreational opportunities op-portunities of the river, and many other work on the river ri-ver as guides and river runners," run-ners," he noted. Garn focused his criticism on regulations that would ban the use ofnotors on commercial commer-cial river trips and reallocate realloc-ate trip days between com -mercjal andnon -commercial users. A decision to ban all motors mo-tors from the river "because "be-cause they are ostensibly incompatible in-compatible with the true wilderness wil-derness experience would be most unfortunate and without justification," he said. NPS studies show, he said, 91 percent of those now using the river describe their experience ex-perience as a "wilderness experience" and 85 percent label it "excellent or perfect." |