Point Reyes Light- June 15, 2000
Residents back total ban on Jet Skis
Two weeks after endorsing a ban on personal watercraft from all waters along the Marin coast, managers of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary this week gave the public a chance to voice their opinions on the controversial regulations.
Sanctuary manager Ed Ueber on Monday heard 70 minutes of impassioned comments both for and against the proposed ban from about 50 residents who gathered at the Park Service's Bear Valley visitor center.
Drafted by the National Atmospheric Oceanic Administration, which manages all of the nation's federal marine sanctuaries, the proposed regulations would slap a blanket ban on the use of personal watercraft in nearly 950 square-nautical-miles off the Marin and southern Sonoma coast.
The new regulations replace a previous proposal that outlawed personal watercraft, better known by their Kawasaki trade name Jet Skis, from within just the first 1000 yards of shore.
Jet Skis and whales "There are gray whales feeding in the mouth of Tomales Bay, where 95 percent of the Jet Ski activity now takes place," said Dillon Beach resident Tom Thornley. "I have repeatedly seen whales there dispersed by Jet Ski activity."
Jules Evens, a director of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, which first called for the ban, gave the proposed regulations a resounding endorsement. "I feel that driving a Jet Ski in the sanctuary is like driving a dirt bike in Tuolumne Meadows, or using a chainsaw in Yosemite," Evens said.
Brian Kelly, an attorney for the personal watercraft industry, said he believes data indicating that Jet Skis are damaging to the environment is largely inaccurate. "This is not about like and dislike," he said. "It's about personal freedoms, the right to recreation, and the constitutional right to access waterways."
The Environmental Action Committee first called for the ban in April 1996, asserting that the two-stroke vehicles didn't belong in a marine sanctuary where they posed a hazard to marine wildlife and created excessive noise and pollution.
Partial bans Several small coalitions of personal-watercraft users have vigorously opposed the ban, arguing that any restriction on their access to local waterways is arbitrary.
Last year, after the EAC filed a lawsuit against the NOAA for inaction, sanctuary managers initiated regulations which would have banned personal watercraft from nearshore waters roughly from Bodega Bay to Stinson Beach.
While the Point Reyes National Seashore, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and the county of Marin in the last two years each imposed their own bans of Jet Skis from certain overlapping waterways, the EAC has continued to argue that such partial bans - which do not encompass the entire Farallones sanctuary - are too difficult to enforce and leave some pristine areas vulnerable to disruption.
On May 17 of this year, federal attorneys announced that the NOAA would amend the regulations to include a ban from all sanctuary waters, including parts of Bodega Bay which have offered personal watercraft users some of the last local sites where the vehicles could be operated legally.
Public comment The public comment period for the proposed regulations closes on Wednesday June 21. Comments on the regulations can be mailed to Ed Ueber, Sanctuary Manager, GFNMS, Fort Mason, Building 201, San Francisco, 94123. A final decision is expected by late September.
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