Would You Support This Legislation?

[jdmidwest]

What I've found, being a "local" but also traveling to a lot of other streams, is that neither locals nor visitors have a monopoly on trashing the rivers. The drunken idiots can be local or not, it's just that the visitors are more likely to be in canoes and kayaks that flip and dump all their empties and full cans in the rivers, while the locals are more likely to be in jetboats or on ATVs and leave all their crap on the gravel bars and up in the weeds.

The rivers will survive if all you're talking about is water, but the things that make them special places may not. When vast sections of bank have been cleared of all the trees and have caved away, when the water is polluted from human waste and livestock waste, when the hordes of pinheads spread until it's as crowded during the week as it is on Saturdays, when houses and tacky subdivisions line the banks, when fracking sucks most of the water out...well, you get the picture.

Every "local" who doesn't appreciate these streams for what they are should be required to live in central Kansas for a couple years.

When that happens, the party crowd will move somewhere else.....

[Al Agnew]

every local I have encountered on NFoW has been interested in keeping the river clean, in fact I have seen people with snorkels picking beer cans up off the bottom of the river.

How much trash did you see on the southfork?

Yep, lots of locals care about the rivers. So do lots of visitors. Some locals don't care, and so do some visitors. Making blanket statements that one group is good and the other bad doesn't make sense. If you live on a river, you're probably most likely to care about it, although there are river landowners who don't care about it except as water for their cattle--upper Eleven Point is a case in point. If you live in the nearest town, you're no more or less likely to care about it than the person visiting from St. Louis.

There are also a lot of responsible canoe livery owners who take it upon themselves to clean up their stretches of rivers regularly. In fact, I'd venture to say that most livery owners care deeply about the rivers. Those I know are as likely to be engaged in conservation battles as they are in battles to protect their profits.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Yep, lots of locals care about the rivers. So do lots of visitors. Some locals don't care, and so do some visitors. Making blanket statements that one group is good and the other bad doesn't make sense. If you live on a river, you're probably most likely to care about it, although there are river landowners who don't care about it except as water for their cattle--upper Eleven Point is a case in point. If you live in the nearest town, you're no more or less likely to care about it than the person visiting from St. Louis.

There are also a lot of responsible canoe livery owners who take it upon themselves to clean up their stretches of rivers regularly. In fact, I'd venture to say that most livery owners care deeply about the rivers. Those I know are as likely to be engaged in conservation battles as they are in battles to protect their profits.

I agree Al, but in some cases the outfitters do lose control and while they may not like it they become a big part of the problem. I know I beat a dead horse, but the DNR's job was to protect the natural resources, and they failed miserably. If you want the compare the MO DNR to prostitution, they not only sold those they're paid to protect into it, but they joined the pimps and collected some of the money.

The outfitters are necessary to allow everyone to enjoy the rivers and the rivers need friends. What's lacking here is overall control to preserve the experience. The ones who come to party because they know there is no law enforcement and that the rivers are to crowded to police ruin it for those that come to float.

An outfitter could turn down those he suspected were a problem, but they would just go somewhere else.

As far as the rivers still being here, that's not the way I see it. If the rivers continue at the pace they have in my lifetime they won't be worth fishing in less than a 100 years. You can throw all the arguments you want at that statement, but that's coming from my own experience and I can't change what I have observed.

[Al Agnew]

Gotta agree with all that, Wayne. The sad thing is, there was a time when I thought we'd finally turned the corner and the rivers were being well protected. You and I both are old enough to remember the dam fights, and the pollution before the Clean Water Act took effect. When the Meramec Dam was defeated and the environmental movement was on the rise, it looked like more and more people were of the kind of mindset that really appreciated the rivers for what they were, and not just for how much money they could bring in. The fishing was getting better as tighter regulations kicked in. The rivers were cleaner, and some were seemingly well-protected as Scenic Riverways or National Wild and Scenic Rivers. It looked like there might even be a state scenic rivers program.

But in the last couple of decades things have really started going downhill. The first really big problem is that the rivers are just being used to death. Jetboats made the water attractive to the motorheads who cared about little but going fast. Raft rentals made it easier for the hard core party doofuses to carry lots of beer, bongs, and beads without worrying about flipping a canoe and losing the beer and boom boxes. Yes, I know that everybody has a right to enjoy the rivers, but some people's enjoyment will always directly infringe upon the enjoyment of others. The fishing went downhill with more pressure on the jetboatable rivers. The locals realized that they could go all over the place on federal land along the Riverways as long as they had 4WD, where the people who once owned that land would have shot them for trespassing. Ditto with the horseback trail riders. The rich people decided to buy up large sections of the rivers for their own private playgrounds or for some romanticized version of ranching like the old time cattle barons out West. Most of the users forgot about protecting the environment, and brought their party hearty and throw away the empties mentality to the rivers.

I love the Ozark streams. They are the closest thing to a church that I have. I don't really give a d... about other people's so-called rights; to me, the way a lot of people treat the rivers is no different from bringing the cooler into the church and tossing the empties under the pews. And I don't see it doing anything but getting worse.

[Midwest troutbum]

Funny you should mention the whole PUBLIC argument jerry....if the rivers are by legal definition public areas shouldn't all folks have to abide by state and federal laws? If its not acceptable on a public street then it shouldn't be legal on the river.

[Midwest troutbum]

Al....you hit the nail on the head. Couldn't even begin to tell the tradegy of our rivers better. I agree 100%.

[Midwest troutbum]

An interesting topic would be when in history did the vast majority of society shift their mindset and view of our states natural resources into a opportunity to host a short term lawless party bar?

[Mitch f]

I love the Ozark streams. They are the closest thing to a church that I have. I don't really give a d... about other people's so-called rights; to me, the way a lot of people treat the rivers is no different from bringing the cooler into the church and tossing the empties under the pews. And I don't see it doing anything but getting worse.

It's almost like attending an open air concert or a sporting event for some people, with even less rules and enforcement. I saw a guy launching a jet ski on the Meramec the other day. Wondered why he couldnt have gone to a local lake.

But, like you, I'm beginning to think the only thing left is to go to a hard to access creek and fish.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I know I beat a dead horse, but the DNR's job was to protect the natural resources, and they failed miserably.

I can't completely agree Wayne. They have stopped a lot of commercial interest from dumping waste into our waters and areas that lead to our waters. They have been behind a major clean up project from mine waste over this way too. A year or two ago, they did a "sting" operation in Jasper and Barton counties and levied quite a few fines. Even nailed a few trailer parks.

I agree there are some areas that the DNR needs to work on but I wouldn't say that they have failed miserably.

[Midwest troutbum]

I can only imagine what Teddy Roosevelt and other founding fathers would have thought about trashing our parks, resources and waterways... I realize he would have wanted to fish and hunt them to death, but what would he have done if he would have encountered a typical summer weekend on many of our rivers or lakes today?

I suppose the folks who donated land in their wills and trusts to the state must also be rolling in their graves at allowing the debauchery behavior to continue.

I suspect most people who use our parks and waterways in this state don't even think about this while their using them.