Taking away YOUR USA Pilot landing rights AGAIN

[Dave Krall CFII]

Pilots need to write a few lines please, and send it to ASAP:

Oregon Dept. of Aviation Board
3040 25th St., SE
Salem ,Oregon 97302-1125
FAX (503) 373-1688
Or Email: aviation.mail@state.or.us

We won this last summer and now they're after us AGAIN, trying to CLOSE Waldo Lake to all seaplanes!

by btwainwright » Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:55 pm
The Oregon State Department of Aviation (ODA) Board will be holding a Public Hearing on the proposed Final Rule for Waldo Lake on January 31, 2013. The Hearing will be held in the Ken Long Conference Room at the Willamalane Center, 250 South 32nd Street, Springfield, Oregon between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. This meeting is the culmination of the action by the ODA Board to craft rules that will allow continued use of Waldo Lake by seaplanes. If you are unfamiliar with this issue, or need a refresher, please visit the Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association (CSPA) website for the story. Read, particularly, Aron's May 6, 2012 Bull-a-Ton article Waldo Lake:Finding Common ground.

CSPA greatly appreciates the work of the ODA Board in attempting to find common ground with the other users of the lake. The ODA effort has been met with opposition by those not wanting motorized use of the lake. Oregon Wild and the U.S. Forest Service are so opposed to this rule that they categorically refused to participate in crafting the Temporary Rules back in May. They and their constituents will not, however, refuse to participate in this hearing and will no doubt be there in force. For this reason CSPA is asking that any local pilots, seaplane and otherwise, that can take the time to support the ODA Board come to the meeting and sign up to speak. It will probably be a rather lively proceeding.

If you are out of the area and interested in preserving you rights to use the Sovereign Waters of the State of Oregon in the future you can send a brief, or lengthy, letter or email to the Oregon Department of Aviation expressing your support for the Board action to:
Oregon Dept. of Aviation Board
3040 25th St., SE
Salem ,Oregon 97302-1125
FAX (503) 373-1688
Or Email: aviation.mail@state.or.us

Thanks in advance,
CSPA Board of Directors

Scroll Down toward the end of this attachment for the proposed rules in Red
Attachments

Waldo Lake Permanent Rule.pdf(273.98 KiB) Downloaded 8 times

 

[Jim Logajan]

Thank you for spotting that, I'm contacting them right now.

I think you got the correct info - but there are groups in Oregon that want to ban seaplanes entirely, so they will be out in force to oppose the ODA proposal and demand a complete ban on seaplanes.

The groups in question have already managed to get all motorized boats banned from the lake - they want to get seaplanes banned too. Here is the Eugene Register Guard story on the subject:

http://www.registerguard.com/web/updates/29277736-55/lake-board-ban-aviation-state.html.csp

The Register Guard is all for the ban; here is their editorial so you know what kind of arguments are going to be used:

http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/29313247-47/seaplanes-lake-board-ban-state.html.csp

 

[Jim Logajan]

I emailed a comment.

I live about 20 minutes drive from Springfield - in theory close enough to attend the Springfield hearing on Thursday, but I have quite a few things happening that same day. Absolutely not going to promise to show up, but in the unlikely event I can, I will try.

EDIT:
For the record, this is what I sent (I accepted their proposed rule, even though it is somewhat restrictive; plus it does open the possibility of a complete ban if they decide to close the forest roads too!):

I would like to comment in favor of the proposed Waldo Lake Permanent Rule - and against any complete prohibition of seaplanes using Waldo Lake.

The proposed permanent rule addresses all reasonable objections to seaplanes using Waldo Lake - except for the subjective aesthetic issue of noise.

Since automobiles and other land motor vehicles are allowed access to some areas of Waldo lake via roads that were created (and will presumably be maintained) by noisy motorized equipment on which motorized vehicles will travel, and considering the historically low number of seaplane landings on Waldo Lake, a complete ban would be both non-equitable and almost redundant. No ban should be predicated on a criteria (noise) that is selectively applied to one form of transportation but not applied to users of another form, in this case ground transportation in road (so-called "developed") areas.

If the state of Oregon is able to maintain and keep open the access roads to Waldo Lake without use of motorized equipment, and if those roads are somehow unique in that that they do not disturb the noise or wilderness aesthetics (this seems inherently impossible to me) then a complete ban on seaplane use of Waldo lake might be reasonable. In that case access via hiking in would be the only allowed mode from an equity standpoint. That such a ban would likely exclude the handicapped from enjoying the aesthetic qualities seems to be harsh, but no different than many such areas that already exist. (Though ironically in that case seaplanes would allow the handicap to visit such wilderness environments without the permanent scarring that road building incurs.)

Permanently scarring forest roads shouldn't get a "pass" while ephemeral access by seaplanes get a "ban".

The State of Oregon should not be banning existing modes of transportation to alleged "unique" public areas using subjective aesthetic rationale - for reasons that I hope are obvious.

Thank you for taking the time to read my comment.

Regards,
James Logajan

 

[Jim Logajan]

I believe the groups that want to control who gets to use Waldo Lake had a legislative plan B for a while, but it does appear that they don't seem to trust the Oregon Department of Aviation, so they appear to be going forward with plan B:

"Bill would ban float planes on Waldo Lake"
http://www.registerguard.com/web/news/sevendays/29414010-46/lake-waldo-bill-ban-prozanski.html.csp