Washington Seaplane Pilots Association - Legislative Issues Past and Present

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Legislative Issues Past and Present

Present Issues

Bureau of Reclamation

Recent rulemaking (Apr'06) contained language which all but prohibited seaplane operation on over 400 water resources in 17 western states that are controlled by the Bureau of Reclamation. Over the past 2 years WSPA, CSPA along with other western state organizations and SPA have taken a very proactive position on this issue.

BoR apparently over reacted to a directive that they must respond to a new Public Conduct Rule issued by Homeland Security. They really did over react! But finally, December 11th, 2008, BoR published their Final Ruling effectivly reversing the origional ban.

In doing so, their proposal in September of '08 contained language removing or excluding Seaplanes from the term Vessels while they are on the water. This concerned many of us. They also had used the term Managing Partners for many of their waters and provided us with a useless list of contacts. You can see a high light of the comments and responses regarding these issuse on the News Page.

This is still news because we will be working with the "Managing Partners" in the near future. We feel this in neccessary to establish a history, documentation, and of course public relations.

Past Issues. (recent) But are they really past?

President Bush signed the bill creating Wild Sky!

As you may know most if not all other wilderness areas ban seaplanes. Wild Sky was written with the provision to allow "Floatplanes" to continue to operate at Lake Isabel.(do you think anyone will notice my Seabee isn't a floatplane?)

It has actually been 9 years in the making. Wild Sky in no different in it's restriction of motorized vehicles than any other wilderness area, EXCEPT for Float Planes. Yes, you heard that right. As quoted from the bill, Float Plane Access- As provided by section 4(d)(1) of the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1133(d)(1)), the use of floatplanes on Lake Isabel, where such use has already become established, shall be permitted to continue subject to such reasonable restrictions as the Secretary of Agriculture determines to be desirable.

So, this is a big change. What does the Secretary of Agriculture have to do with anything? I'm not sure. You can bet nothing will change just yet, when the new administration come in though we should be prepared for a fight.

Missouri Breaks Still and Issue

The BLM final plan prohibits seaplanes from using the river, but allows other power vessels, even though the BLM admits they’ve still never seen a seaplane there and don’t know that there is really any problem. It appears they have denied our access since we are not “locals” and they wanted to show environmentalists involved that they were being hard on aircraft somewhere in the plan (the BLM allowed several grass strips to remain and this has angered some of the environmental groups).

Two web sites to look at are, first the BLM site of the final report:
http://www.blm.gov/mt/st/en/fo/lewistown_field_office/um_rmp_process/rmp.html
And the second, the Friends of the Missouri Breaks web site showing what they are encouraging their members to object to, like the airstrips and use of the river by power boats: http://www.missouribreaks.org/

The BLM final plan says that seaplanes can use the river in an “emergency” which is something. But the issue is that as a navigable river and a pathway for interstate commerce, the seaplane use should simply be allowed outright. If it remains “emergency” use only, then:

1) the pilot is required to get into an emergency before using the river – rather than using the river before declaring an emergency as precautionary or just good judgment; the history of aviation accidents tells us this will predictably lead to serious accidents; and

2) there is the inevitable problem of what the definition of an “emergency” is, and park rangers are likely to give out a ticket anyway to be safe on their side, which would then require the pilot to return to a court in Montana to defend themselves – guilty until proven innocent.

Aron Faegre, President

Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association