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Show A-15 The Park Record Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, November 13-16, 2010 Should we tame wild rivers? tear that down," says Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area senior ranger BY SARAH G1LMAN Stew Pappenfort. Then High Country News again, he adds, Frog Rock There's a boulder in "is a real dangerous spot on Staircase Rapid on the an (otherwise) intermediate South Fork of Idaho's run." So how far should land Payette River that can kill managers and outfitters go you. to protect recreationists? If you spill from a raft And in doing so, are they upstream on the left side of encouraging an increasingly the river, you might get common public expectation channeled to the boulder's of a casual, risk-free natural submerged undercut face, experience? where the water could suck Such concerns aren't limyou into a dangerous sieve. ited to rafting. In the midRiver guide Dean Fairburn *90s, a man sued the state of drowned here in 2007. Some California after a cougar 15 to 20 rafts wrap here attacked his son, because every season, according to the signs at the state park commercial outfitter Chad where the family was hiking Long, who co-manages warned only of ticks and Cascade Raft and Kayak snakes. More recently, a with his extended family. woman sued the U.S. Fish But with the river low and Wildlife Service and this fall because of work on Montana Fish, Wildlife and an upstream dam, Chad's Parks after a grizzly bear father, Tom Long, saw an fatally mauled her husband. opportunity. Could the Most such suits fail boulder be moved to make because various laws limit the rapid safer? It's not land manager and landownexactly natural, anyway: er liability for accidents arisThe Army Corps of ing from natural hazards. Engineers reconstructed the The particulars vary by run after a mudslide here state, but if an agency alters blocked the river in 2001. So a hazard like a rapid, even Tom got a stream-alteration with the intent to make it permit from the state - and safer, it could potentially be kicked off a heated discus- held liable for future accision within the Whitewater dents there, experts say. community. Landowners assume some Meanwhile, this past July, liability for artificial white23-year-old river guide water parks, for example, Kimberly Appelson became says Denver-based recrethe fourth person since 2000 ational lawyer and blogger to drown in a more notori- James Moss, and the risks in ous, natural sieve in Frog those places are likely much Rock Rapids on Colorado's less than those at a rapid Arkansas River. This fall, like Frog Rock. officials there also considStill, the legal picture is ered tweaking the rapid to uncertain: Proposals to alter make it safer - rousing yet natural riverbeds for boater more debate. safety are rare and seldom Why the kerfuffle? carried out. On the lower Humans regularly rejigger Youghiogheny River, in one rivers, using dams, diver- famous case, the state of sions, riprap and concrete. Pennsylvania undertook a But in rafting, like many five-year public review and outdoor sports, the risk is an engineering study to part of the thrill. "People determine whether Dimple die on Longs Peak every Rock Rapid, the site of sevyear, but we're not going to eral deaths, ought to be changed. In 2006, it concluded that alterations could easily create new dangers without reducing the risk of flipping. The river guides who took matters into their own hands on Arizona's Salt River in 1993 - dynamiting dangerous Quartzite Falls - ended up facing a federal grand jur^ Though Idaho officials revoked the Staircase permit Sept. 30 in order to initiate a public review should Tom Long decide to continue, the proposal appears to be on track again. On Oct. 11, the Idaho Whitewater Association hosted a public meeting on the matter: About 80 percent of the 85 people present voted to turn the rock on its side to close off the sieve, says son Chad. Now that they're aware of the danger, he notes, "people are not comfortable with not doing anything." On the Arkansas, officials will build a small cofferdam upstream of Frog Rock this month in order to retrieve Appelson's body, which they believe is still trapped in the sieve. They want to get it done in time to avoid disturbing the local fishery during spawning season, so they've decided to forgo any permanent alterations to the rapid for now. In the meantime, Pappenfort says his agency will improve signage to make certain people are aware of the risk. But with hundreds of thousands of people heading down the Arkansas each season, there will likely be a handful of deaths every year no matter what. "You really can't make a river safe," says American Whitewater board member and safety expert Charlie Walbridge. "It's a changing organism." This story originally appeared in the Oct. 25, 2010 issue o/High Country News (hcn.org). O H O W FMRNFNRE 2198 5 HIQHLdNP PRIVE • SWdRHCTO (801) 485-3606 H(M5: MOM 10 flfl-8 m , TllK-MT 10 flfl-6 m icare its annual checkup! Compare your current plan with HumanaChoice "Your Plan. bar*:. : . (PPO) Humana's Plan , fif Affordable monthly plan premiums ; ; H.Doctor's visits and hospital coverage 1 • Prescription SB Prescription dfju^coyeriage/i •.. .iT ]; ;;': • Convenient! «3 Convenient mail-order prescription • } • • Fitness-proc; 0Fitness program;.-\'''V:^:-.;;^;.';v/;:':''; : " • Preventive t. 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