The National Park Service is developing rules to
allow local park officials to restrict, and perhaps ban, personal
sit-down or stand-up watercraft. Park Service program manager
Dennis Burnett says although the fast watercraft make up only 7
percent of all boaters, they cause more than half of all boating
accidents. They also dump about a third of their unburned fuel and
oil directly into the water.
Conservation groups
hope the new rules are strict. “We’re not blindly saying
(watercraft such as) JET SKIS are wrong,” says Kevin Collins, who
works for the Washington, D.C.-based National Parks and
Conservation Association. But parks, he adds, “were set aside to
protect their natural condition, their tranquility and their
silence.” Glacier and Everglades national parks have already banned
this type of watercraft, and conflict surrounds their use at
Olympic National Park in Washington and Canyonlands National Park
in Utah. But a complete ban throughout the park system is unlikely,
Burnett says.
For more information, call Dennis
Burnett at the National Park Service, 202/208-7675; or call the
National Parks and Conservation Association at
202/223-6722.
* Sara
Phillips
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Banning the buzz.
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