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.........
