I've held off on commenting here but here is few things I've got:
1. In the case of this incident, I'm a firm believer that all parties were at fault, or at least certainly didn't do anything to alleviate the situation.
2. The floaters/drunkards can't and shouldn't be banned from the river, hell I've been on many floats over the years where I had a few to many. Its the same way on large lakes with fishermen complaining about jet skis and recreational boaters messing everything up, but at least the floaters aren't operating motor vehicles.
3. The number 1 problem I have with ANYBODY using our waters is littering. I'd rather see littering tickets given out to floaters than public intoxication tickets. Sadly, I have also seen fishermen litter as well