Quieter Grand Canyon?

[azdesertfather]

National Park Service and Federal Aviation Administration to Hold Meeting on Grand Canyon Overflights

Grand Canyon, Ariz. - The National Park Service (NPS) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will hold a meeting on Tuesday, July 28 to update an advisory panel on the agencies’ efforts to restore natural quiet in Grand Canyon National Park.

The meeting will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the High Country Conference Center, 300 South Milton Road, Flagstaff, Arizona.

During the meeting, the NPS and FAA will update the Grand Canyon Working Group on the status of several noise reduction alternatives. The information will include preliminary sound modeling results that quantify the degree to which the alternatives restore natural quiet in the park.

The Working Group was established to help develop programs to measure and manage the overflight noise at Grand Canyon National Park. The group includes agency, tribal, environmental, recreation, and aviation representatives.

While Tuesday’s meeting is open to the public, attendees’ participation will be limited to making brief comments at the end of the meeting.

Congress mandated the restoration of natural quiet in the park when it passed the National Parks Overflights Act of 1987.

[joebartels]

preliminary sound modeling results

Working Group

develop programs

This isn't like finding the cure for some disease, we know the solution... stop flying

Congress mandated the restoration of natural quiet in the park when it passed the National Parks Overflights Act of 1987

There must be some serious loop holes in the act

[writelots]

Congress mandated the restoration of natural quiet in the park when it passed the National Parks Overflights Act of 1987

There must be some serious loop holes in the act

No, it's just moving at the usual federal rate of change...

[Jim]

You might think that with the thermals coming out of the canyon and the desire for quiet conditions, there would be increased use of gliders with supplemental engines for emergencies. Maybe its not practical.

[hikeaz]

Why do you think they call it an 'act'?

McCain was one of the powers behind the passage of the 1987 act. But I fear the chopper & fixed wing overflights will be just like the motorized raft trips & mule trips in GCNP. Too much dinero passes from the concession operators to the politicos for the environment to have a chance.

In 1973 the EIS stated "The National Park Service publishes a final environmental impact statement for a newly proposed Grand Canyon wilderness classification. This document states that, “the Colorado River was excluded, for the present, due to usage of motors on float trips. Use of motors on the river will be phased-out by the end of the 1976 season.”
In 1980 (what happened to '76, '77, '78, & '79?) ...."The NPS submits to the Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks a revised final <?> Grand Canyon wilderness recommendation, classifying 980,000 million acres of the park as “recommended wilderness” and 132,000 acres, including the Colorado River corridor, as “potential wilderness,” which presumes the eventual elimination of motorized use.
Then Sen. Orin Hatch (Ut.)gets involved (family business is a MOTORIZED GC raft co.) The NPS sets aside its 1979 river management proposal to ban motorized use on the river, and instead implements a revised Colorado River Management Plan that requires motorized use to continue. The dichotomy between the agency’s wilderness recommendation that would require the removal of motorized watercraft if enacted by Congress, and the agency’s management plan (and resulting concession contracts) that require such motorized use, is born. At no time since has the agency’s Grand Canyon wilderness recommendation been formally transmitted to any Secretary of the Interior or to any President, nor by any President to Congress, despite the statutory obligation to do so that originated with the Wilderness Act of 1964, and was repeated with a new statutory deadline of 1977 in the Grand Canyon Enlargement Act of 1975.
Then, following the "If you don't like my standards, I have OTHERS" approach...1999 - The Department of the Interior prepares the internal “Grand Canyon Wilderness Matrix” document. This document concludes that because motorized use on the Colorado River is “transitory in nature,” the NPS is not obligated under the law or its wilderness management policies to eliminate such use in a proposed “potential wilderness” area.

If you have interest in some overflight background, and can stomach a reem of political drivel, check here for a play-by-play from 1998 >> http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/re ... 282_0f.htm

Geez..... and we have to PAY these guys to come up with this crap.........

[joebartels]

[hikeaz]

There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness. --Bob Marshall

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.- George Bernard Shaw

I resemble those remarks...... ;)