Onsr Comments

[Bruegy]

Stl today article http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/doubts-about-the-future-of-a-national-park-in-the/article_02722479-7801-5d45-83f1-10d2a3ea21e1.html

[Al Agnew]

The article wasn't anything new, but the comments section is scary.

I couldn't believe the people who said that the river has gotten so much shallower since they stopped digging gravel from it. As far as I know, there was never a lot of gravel being dug out of Current River, except for a big in-stream pit at Doniphan. There certainly wasn't enough gravel being dug out of whatever little operations were going on in the upper half to make any difference in the gravel load of the river. Not to mention that it's been scientifically shown that digging gravel doesn't do any good.

In fact, those people won't want to even entertain the possibility, but it's likely that jetboat traffic has been instrumental in the river getting wider and shallower. Go back and watch the old video that Chief posted. All those chutes that were narrow, log-lined, and difficult to run are gone. The riffles on the Current, like many on the Meramec, are much wider, shallower, and more open today than they were back then. That's not a matter of gravel filling them in. Gravel didn't cause the banks to erode away and widen them. A lot of us who have floated and fished these rivers since before jetboats have noticed that the widening and shallowing of so many of the riffles seemed to begin to happen as jetboats got popular. I truly believe it's the incessant pounding of the banks with jetboat wakes that has loosened that very narrow zone along the water's edge at normal levels, allowing floods to have much more of an effect at eroding the banks than they would have otherwise.

And as for more gravel coming into the streams and filling them in, I've got a theory about that, too. I was looking on Google Earth recently at the smaller tributaries coming into the Current. Take Big Creek, for instance...the Big Creek that flows into the river from the northeast between Round Spring and Two Rivers, not the one that comes in from the southwest farther upstream. This Big Creek has a few smallish farms on the upper portions, which have been there for a long time. There isn't a whole lot of development along its watershed. Never has been. Yet the lower section of the creek, which flows through a canyon with no bottom fields, entirely wooded, is a wide gravel channel with a nice little clear stream running through it. That gravel has probably been there for a LONG time, probably since the years when the forests were originally logged.

But maybe there's a reason why it's coming into the river from that creek now, perhaps more so than back in the days when the Riverways was established. And you can actually see that possible reason on Google Earth...

The latest Google Earth photos were taken at a time in the summer when the creek was fairly low. And the entire twelve mile length of the creek between Mauser Mill and the river is one big ATV track. Every gravel bar is rutted with ATV tracks, every riffle crisscrossed with them. I looked at some of the other gravelly tributaries, and while not quite as bad as Big Creek, they too have plenty of ATV ruts. ATVs weren't really popular until the 1970s. And the more you disturb a gravel bar, the looser the gravel gets and the more it moves in the next flood. Could it be that all those vehicles coming down onto bars on the river, and all those ATVs tearing up the tributary bottoms (illegally, of course), are making the gravel that's already in the valleys move around a lot more and fill in the pools in floods?

[tanvat]

Al, excellent points. At the Powder Valley, meeting I heard a few folks lamenting how the Park Service does not "take care of" the river by not dredging it out. Those are the same folks that adamantly denied that there were any more roads along the river now than 25 years ago. Same who said that jets don't do anything to the bottom of the river and that all the serpentine "stripes" in on the bottom in sections are from canoes dragging and that jets don't cause erosion - b/c, after all, "you said yourself the water was clear." Or that roads don't cause erosion and that all the gravel that needs to be dredged is b/c "Leo Drey clearcut all that Pioneer Forest." It is a modern day flat Earth society. Hopefully, NPS won't buckle to that and some sensible, fact based solutions will come out of it. But, I doubt it. Wouldn't want to trample on anyone's "rights" after all.

[fishinwrench]

Wouldn't want to trample on anyone's "rights" after all.

While I have become as tired as most folks of hearing all of this anarchist BS and all the fist pounding about rights violations, this mindset didn't just pop up out of nowhere. It is a result of masses of people all over the country being constantly f@√ed with.

Government and the law has entered into personal family issues, they over punish and drain peoples funds over piddly crap in the name of "safety", or environmental reasons, ect.ect. And while a large portion of us don't feel effected by it there are a lot who truly are, and they don't feel that what they are feeling and/or seeing is ay all justified.

When authorities enter into a persons (or their family/friends) life, and make life hard on them for what they feel is "no good reason" then you end up with a group of folks who absolutely do not trust and might actually FEAR any official officer or form of authority. And then those same people raise children and influence others to feel the same way.

Although it can be annoying and counter productive alot of the time, that growing mindset is not unjustified if you just look around a bit.

[Al Agnew]

You've still got a couple of hours to get your comments in on the management plan.

[Mitch f]

While I have become as tired as most folks of hearing all of this anarchist BS and all the fist pounding about rights violations, this mindset didn't just pop up out of nowhere. It is a result of masses of people all over the country being constantly f@√ed with.

Government and the law has entered into personal family issues, they over punish and drain peoples funds over piddly crap in the name of "safety", or environmental reasons, ect.ect. And while a large portion of us don't feel effected by it there are a lot who truly are, and they don't feel that what they are feeling and/or seeing is ay all justified.

When authorities enter into a persons (or their family/friends) life, and make life hard on them for what they feel is "no good reason" then you end up with a group of folks who absolutely do not trust and might actually FEAR any official officer or form of authority. And then those same people raise children and influence others to feel the same way.

Although it can be annoying and counter productive alot of the time, that growing mindset is not unjustified if you just look around a bit.

Very well stated! It's very hard to trust anyone in the government anymore...on both sides of the isle. Always an agenda, Always looking to one up someone on the other side by exaggerations, lies, half truths. Sometimes not even half truths but 10% truths. My frustration level is at critical mass. I guess it's always going to be the 80-20 rule for the rest of our lives.

[KCRIVERRAT]

Guys I'm a local from down there I think the big problem is not enough enforcement! I love taking my jet boat down there and fishing. It is a great smallmouth fishery and because of some idiot drunks they are going to ruin it for us. Believe I have never seen a ranger down there patrolling and they wonder why people are running wild down there. I'm so sick of them saying well the jet boats aren't working down there, well if they would actually get some rangers down there it would be a different story. The people trying to make these new amendments haven't even been there most likely and have no idea what's going on. Just really pisses me off

I respect guys like you Alex. But I've been checked on both rivers including the upper JF more than once. Agents hiding in the brush along gravel bars and waving you over. Pay the agents salary and hide him in the brush, guess that's cheaper than putting boats on the riverways runnin' down the hellraisers.

[Jacks Fork]

I grew up on a farm around Harlow (north of Mountain View), and our property ran down a ridge to the Jack's Fork just west of the NPS boundary. I never post on this site - mostly just get tips on smallmouth fishing.

I can't understand why people are missing the big picture. The Riverways should be seen as a blessing. It's a National Park in our back yard. Instead of viewing the park as fulcrum of growth for the local communities (just take a look at West Yellowstone or Bryson City), we're fighting about regulations that have little affect on our lives or livelihood.

I think our elected officials are missing the point as well. The south central Ozarks are still the poorest and least educated part of the state and someone should give a dung about that. Transferring the Riverways back to the state would only drive more out-of-state visitors away and put an additional tax burden on Missourians.

[ColdWaterFshr]

People need to write their congressmen and senators. This Jason Smith guy is out of control and needs to be stopped. Check out the bald-face LIE he sent in a letter to the editor of the Post Dispatch about "all 3 plans ban camping on gravel bars"

http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letters-to-the-editor/park-service-plans-limit-access-hurt-local-economies/article_ee7e38b4-9342-5b4b-a1c2-3db9e50bd017.html

[fishinwrench]

Yeah! Write a letter to a bunch of liars and complain about somebody lying. They'll reply in assurance that they are currently looking into it, and weighing options on ways of punishing this, this-this...... Dirty Rotten Scoundrel for deceitful untruths made in favor if his personal agenda !

Of all the audacity!