Ozark National Scenicway General Managment Plan

[Al Agnew]

I've often said that if you could take all those locals who don't give a darn about the real values of the rivers and want to use them the same way they would use a big reservoir or an ATV park, and transplant them to central Kansas and make them live there for a year, they MIGHT come back with a little more appreciation of the unique value of these Ozark streams.

But then again, there are a heck of a lot of out of towners coming to the rivers only to party in a watery setting where the law enforcement is lax, too.

If I had a religion, it would be based upon rivers. I love rivers. I love the Current and Jacks Fork, and it saddens me to see what they have become in the summer. I'm relegated to floating and fishing them only in the late autumn and winter, when you can get a sense of what they once were.

Really, it makes me detest a whole lot of people.

[fishinwrench]

Thy rod and thy paddle, they comfort me....

[Mark]

Al, you do have a religion. One similar to Native Americans.

[awhuber]

Well that arguement worked on the park service. How do you think we got the Salem and Eminence meetings?

[countryred]

We go to our place on the upper Jacks Fork mostly to get away from crowds. Its a magical place to us and in some sense the waters wash away our stress and allow us to return to the people that we really are. Siiting in my camp chair watching the campfire slowly burn up the logs or along the creek bank seeing how the current flows around and over the rocks is just about as relaxing as it gets. We are far enough away from the river that in the summer the crowds don't bother us. At least while we are camping.

Its a shame that those who abuse the rivers in many ways will also be the ones who get heard the most in some of those meetings. Freedom is a wonderful and precious thing. Bad thing is though when one mans freedom overlaps another's...., conflict occurs.

Too bad we can't just ban all river dorks and drunken idiots, keep the bad giggers away from the Smallies,...,make the horses go up in to the bushes to crap, and the crazy jet boaters from terrorizing the river. Too bad we can't just give them all common sense pills when they show up.

[fishinwrench]

The bottom line is that there are just too many people in the world, and we are getting in each others way.

[awhuber]

Remember folks the meetings are for the proposed wilderness area. Comments about the options are being taken on line. They will be there to try to answer questions about the various options but all comments will be on line. by the way the wilderness, by the park service own words, is dead in the water.

[tanvat]

^{I think it is incorrect to say that "all comments will be online." Comments can be submitted online, but don't have to be. According to the NPS website:}

^{The public comment period for the Draft Plan will be open until February 7, 2014; comments received by then will be most helpful in developing the final plan. The public is encouraged to provide comments online at www.parkplanning.nps.gov/ozar. Comments will also be accepted at the public meetings, or through the mail to:}

^{Superintendent}

^{Ozark National Scenic Riverways}

^{P. O. Box 490}

^{Van Buren, Missouri 63965}

[tanvat]

awhuber, where has it been said, in the park service's own words, that the Big Spring Wilderness proposal is dead? If that is so, I'm sure you can provide a link to a factual source that would confirm that assertion.

Re the wilderness proposal, what are the fact and resource based objections to designating a pint-sized wilderness area in a state that has so little? Or, for that matter, what the objections to limiting the use of high powered motorboats above Two Rivers? These are honest questions b/c I really don't know. The only objections I've heard are either factually incorrect and/or boil down to the bare personal desire to fly up and down the river via boat or ATV irrespective of the consequences to the resource or other users.