Waldo Lake motor ban passes

Oregon State Marine Board members complain of inappropriate pressured by Gov. Kulongoski’s office

Waldo Lake is free of gas-powered engines.

After more than 15 years of pressure from environmental and recreation groups, multiple public hearings and a federal court case, the ban was officially adopted Thursday by the Oregon State Marine Board at a meeting in Portland.

The 4-to-1 approval by the governor-appointed body was made under protest. All of the members said they were uncomfortable with the level of pressure they felt they received from the governor’s office to pass the ban. And some board members called it “a failure of democracy” and a “tragedy for the democratic process.”

“It has been very clear that we serve at the pleasure of the governor,” said Deborah McQueen of Scappoose, the lone board member to vote no. “I might have been appointed to this position, but I’m sure it wasn’t to be a bobblehead and just say ‘yes’ to everything.”

But Mike Carrier, Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s natural resources policy director, said the governor asked for the ban, and supported the ban, but nobody strong armed the board or told board members how to vote or suggested the governor would rescind their appointment.

“I absolutely resent the claim or innuendo that that was part of the discussion. That was ridiculous and untrue,” Carrier said.

Few members of the public attended the board meeting, which was held at the Expo Center in North Portland to coincide with the Portland Boat Show. The exception was Steven Stewart, the Eugene timber heir who has battled a ban on gas-powered motors that the U.S. Forest Service attempted to adopt in April 2007, after considering the action through various processes for two decades.

Steward declined to comment directly but wrote on a reporter’s notepad that he was “very disappointed.”

Gary Guttormsen, a 10-year wilderness ranger and 30-year Springfield high school teacher, said he was overjoyed. “This is a big deal. I can’t even believe it.” Guttormsen, who did not attend Thursday’s meeting, also is on the board of environmental group Oregon Wild.

The ban will be effective at the time of the summer snow melt, when boaters regain access to the lake.

The pristine lake in the high Cascades near Oakridge is popular with kayakers, canoists and all manner of paddle boats operators, who say they value the quiet on the lake, including 644 people who wrote or spoke in hearings in favor of the ban.

They favor creating a spiritual sanctuary, Marine Board Director Paul Donheffner said.

“That’s one of the themes we heard in Eugene in particular. There’s a spiritual or Zenlike quality to the lake that needed to be protected. That would create a unique opportunity for paddlers — and motor boaters can go someplace else.”

Motor boaters don’t use Waldo Lake very much, Donheffner said. A survey in 2008 found that registered boat owners visited the lake the equivalent of 758 days. People with motor boats made up only 69 of those days.

About 161 people testified against a ban on gas-powered boats at hearings, by mail or by e-mail.

“It’s going to be a big loss for a small number of boaters,” said Marl Carter, general manager of Staff Jennings Boating Center in Eugene, who was working at the boat show. “It’s not going to be a disaster.”

Chuck Meeker, owner of Clemens Marina in Eugene, who also was working at the boat show, said he was opposed to the ban.

“It’s pretty sad when a small group of people take away the rights of other people to do things in their leisure time,” he said. “Small groups of extremists can enforce their thoughts and actions on other people. It’s not the point if there are 10 people using it or 100 people. The point is the land is here for people to enjoy.”

While few straight motor boaters use the lake, a lot of sailboaters do — 508 days of visiting in 2008, according to the survey.

Albany resident Keith Kendrick, who is president of a group that doesn’t want to ban motor boats from the lake, Waldo Lake for Everyone, is a sailor who says it’s unsafe for sailboats to be on the lake when high winds arise without a gas-powered motor to power them to shore.

Donheffner said electric motors aren’t the equal of the gas-powered “kicker” motors that sailboats use.

“Sailboat operators are the biggest group adversely impacted by a ban. You pretty much can’t navigate a large sailboat in and out of the docks and around rocks — and if the wind dies — without some sort of auxiliary power source,” he said.

But sailboat merchants and sailing club members who set up displays in a corner of the boat show said that’s not necessarily true.

“We don’t need engines. That’s why we have sails,” said Alan Somervell of the Island Sailing Club in Portland. “We’re better off up there without the power boats leaving wakes.”

Sailboat salesman Mike Fitzhugh, owner of Passion Yachts in Portland, said the ban won’t make a difference to most sailors.

“The sailors can go in and out just fine using wind,” he said. “Smaller than 21 feet, you can leave the dock with the sails up and sail right back to the docks.”

But Kendrick said his group, made up of about 20 opponents of the ban, including Stewart, soon will launch an appeal of the marine board’s decision.

“We will fight. We’ll start in the courts,” he said.