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Chill on Thrill Craft
The chainsaw-style din of personal watercraft-the innocuous label of those machines bearing trade names such as Jet Ski, Waterbike and Sea Doo-won't spook a flock of birds or wake waterfront residents from their afternoon naps for long if Marin County has its way. The county banned these "thrillcraft" from its waters last November, following in the footsteps of its Golden Gate neighbor San Francisco-but has since found itself facing enforcement problems, threats to shoreline improvement grants, coastal permit issues and a lawsuit.
"It's amazing the lengths the personal watercraft industry will go to fight an environmentally sound ordinance that was passed by the people of Marin," says Jenna Postar of the Bluewater Network, which has been championing such bans in sensitive areas around the nation and is now an intervenor in the lawsuit.
Perhaps the industry, and its consumers, are feeling a little hemmed in. Banned from San Juan County Washington, Tahoe and San Francisco in the late 1990s, not to mention assorted reservoirs and lakes, West Coast jet ski enthusiasts have been forced to pull back that throttle. The Marin ban - the strictest countywide ban on the California books-was followed this spring by the creation of the largest jet ski free area in the U.S.A. The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-prompted by a lawsuit from the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin - announced a ban in its 948-square-mile Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to begin after public hearings later this year.
Each challenge to its watery playgrounds has inspired the personal watercraft industry to new legal acrobatics not unlike the weaving between vessels, jumping wakes, spinning and changing course radically so popular with users of its products. Early legal maneuvers centered on the right of all anglers and boaters to use public boat launch ramps. A key case involved the City of Redding's attempt at a ban on the grounds that the craft disturbed endangered salmon migrating along the Sacramento River. The industry succeeded in overturning the ban by arguing that ramps built with federal funds are governed by a law (Wallop-Breaux) saying that they must be open to all users.
"You can't build a ramp with their taxes and then five years later say you're going to restrict a particular group's access, an equity issue comes into play," says Dave Johnson of the Department of Boating and Waterways.
More recent bans have been upheld, however. In a similar Florida case, a judge ruled that Wallop-Breaux does not grant personal watercraft users a federal right to public launch ramps, and allows them to be "singled out" from other boaters and banned, according to Bluewater's Postar.
So the new Marin lawsuit, still in its early days, is being brought under the broad grounds that it denies riders their constitutional rights to public waterways. According to Dave Zaltsman of the Marin County Counsel's office, "The case is basically a kitchen sink approach, with the issues shifting depending on where industry research tells them they may be successful."
While the lawsuit percolates, Marin is dealing with other bits of politics and paperwork. This July, it must get a new permit from the Coastal Commission because it has changed the use of its waters with the ban. It must also resolve the final details of a grant application for funds to renovate a boat launching facility at Miller Park on Tomales Bay. When Marin applied to Boating and Waterways for the grant, the state said a condition of the grant would be a special corridor to take jet skis out of the area, according to Marin's Dennis Jauch. In the end, however, the county may be spared this condition. It recently discovered that Miller Park fronts on federal waters controlled by national parks with existing jet ski bans that supersede the county's. "Any corridor would have to go for miles out into the ocean, so it's a moot point," says Jauch. But such conditions could be imposed for any future grant applications in other locations.
Marin's most immediate problem is enforcement of the ban. The sheriff must cover two coasts with one patrol boat and the county only recently got some signs up educating skiers about the ban. But boundaries are the nightmare issue, especially on the Bay coast. The county only controls some waters, while cities like Sausalito, Belvedere, Mill Valley and Tiburon control others. One local official likened the waters of Richardson Bay to a "jigsaw puzzle," pointing out that there are no signs out in the middle indicating boundaries.
Though the cities are generally supportive of the county's ban, none of them want to pass their own bans until the lawsuit is settled. "Once the lawsuit is overturned, enforcement and education will all fall into place," says Postar. In the meantime, skiers have been heading up to Sonoma launch sites.
Wherever they launch and range, today's thrillcraft, also known as "musclecraft," leave pollution in their wake. California's Air Resources Board recently placed tough new emissions controls on personal watercraft, which can emit as much air pollution in a single day of riding as driving 139,000 miles in a 1998 passenger car.
A two hour ride also dumps about three gallons of gas and oil (not to mention MTBE) into the water unburned (adding up to a national volume equivalent to four Exxon Valdez spills per year). Experts say the polluter and noisemaker is the same carbureted two stroke engine that powers the majority of outboard motors, it's just the size and handling of the craft that make them so damaging.
The Air Board has given manufacturers a series of deadlines in the next decade by which they have to clean up what Postar calls "antiquated machines and gross polluters." Since personal watercraft remain the fastest growing segment of the boating industry, accounting for 30% of all boat sales, manufacturers have already come up with a cleaner quieter two stroke (direct injection versus cabureted) engine.
"The pollution stuff may be fixable," says Zaltsman. "Riders charging through a group of marine mammals or disrupting birds is what requires a ban."
Contact: Jenna Postar (415)788-3666 or Dave Johnson (916)263-0780 www.dbw.ca.gov or www.bluewaternetwork.org
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