Isleb Royale Park Plan Under Development

ISLE ROYALE WILDERNESS NEEDS YOUR HELP General Management Plan under development by National Park Service

Citizens Allied for Limiting Motors is calling for the public to comment on the General Management Plan being prepared for the Isle Royale Wilderness in Lake Superior. This message comes from the organization.

The National Park Service is well into developing a General Management Plan for Isle Royale(island) National Park in Lake Superior. This is the first GMP for this park and it is extremely important that nonmotorized zones in the waters of Lake Superior within Park boundaries be established now. When finalized, the GMP will establish the direction of use and wilderness protection on Isle Royale for at least the next 15 to 20 years.

Isle Royale's land base, inclusive of interior lakes and streams, is mostly federally designated wilderness. Surrounding Lake Superior waters within Park boundaries are not designated wilderness, but NPS has the authority to designate the types of use allowed.

During the first stages of the GMP planning process NPS presented five alternative scenarios, a few of which included motorized sensitive (motorboats allowed but restricted to no-wake speed) and nonmotorized zones for certain bays, coves, and channels because of increasing user conflicts, and to protect nesting water birds such as Loons. Many public comments were submitted both for and against nonmotorized zones, and motor boaters came out in force in an attempt to prevent any nonmotorized designations.

Of all NPS scenarios presented, the one referred to as the wilderness alternative (alternative C) had the largest non-motorized area, but even this was extremely modest. Out of 396,500 acres of Lake Superior waters lying within the Park's boundaries, it proposed only 2,333 acres as nonmotorized and 9,777 acres as motorized sensitive.

A Draft General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement has been issued, as of March 1998, recommending a proposed action that's not too bad except for the puny nonmotorized zones. The proposed nonmotorized area is now down to only 195 acres, a 92% reduction from the already extremely modest wilderness alternative.

Even though the proposed non-motorized zones are so insignificant, and 99.95% of Isle Royale's Lake Superior waters are still open to motorboats under the proposed action, the Isle Royale Boaters Association and associated interests are up in arms. They are demanding the complete elimination of nonmotorized zones for Isle Royale. With all of Lake Superior's 20 million acres of surface water open to them, motorboaters still oppose having less than a couple hundred acres of the Lake within Isle Royale preserved for nonmotorized activities.

Those of us who prefer the smell of spruce and moose over that of oil and gasoline need to counter the motorboaters' demands, demonstrating strong support for both the authority of NPS to zone waters nonmotorized (there are some claiming it's not constitutional), and for greatly expanded nonmotorized zones for Isle Royale's GMP.

Since this is a national park, it's a national issue, and your help is important wherever you live. There are three main things you can do:

Write a letter. Written comments to the NPS supporting expanded nonmotorized zones are crucial. Your letter need not be long. Even just one or two short paragraphs stating your position is very helpful. Write to the NPS stating that:

The nonmotorized zones proposed in the draft GMP are seriously inadequate.
Nonmotorized zones need to be greatly expanded, at least to the level outlined in the wilderness alternative (alternative C), or more.

Supporting arguments in your letter can include:

Nonmotorized zones help to provide ecological protection of aquatic and shoreline environments from the pollution and disturbance of motorboat use (for great information on motorboat pollution visit Earth Island Institute's Bluewater Network web site at (http://www.earthisland.org/ei/bw).

Nonmotorized zones will help preserve quiet, solitude, and the overall wilderness experience for park users. Any personal anecdotes of conflicts you have experienced with motorboaters while on Isle Royale are important to include.
Neither ecological protection or preservation of wilderness values can be achieved with 99.95% of Isle Royale's Lake Superior waters left motorized.

Comments will be accepted through May 15, 1998. Send letters to:

Comments can also be phoned to Isle Royale Superintendent Douglas Barnard at 906-482-0984, or sent via e-mail from the comment box at http://www.nps.gov/planning/current.htm.

Sending a copy of your letter, or just a brief note to your congressional representative or senator would also be helpful. So far they have reportedly heard mainly from motorboaters.

In April, attend the Isle Royale GMP public meeting nearest you and speak out in favor of expanded nonmotorized zones. This, too, is critically important. Dates and locations are:

April 22: St Paul, MN, University of Minnesota, St. Paul Student
Center - North Star Ballroom, 2017 Buford Ave.
April 23: Duluth, MN, Radisson Hotel, 505 W. Superior St., Duluth.
April 24: Houghton, MI, Houghton High School Auditorium and
Multipurpose Room, 1603 Gundlach Road.
April 27: Ann Arbor, MI, Cobblestone Farm Center, 2781 Packard Road.

All meetings will have the same time format, which is:

Circulate a petition to get signatures in support of nonmotorized zones. You can get petitions from CALM, P.O.Box 391, Houghton, MI 49931; calm@portup.com. The petitions can also be copied and passed out to friends. Petitions need to be returned to CALM by May 11, 1998.

For those who want more information, copies of the Draft General Management Plan / Environmental Impact Statement can be obtained from the NPS, at 800 E. Lakeshore Dr, Houghton, MI 49932 or telephone 906-482-0984 at the Denver, CO NPS Service Center. It is also available to be viewed on the Internet at http://www.nps.gov/planning/current.htm.

Thanks for your consideration of this issue and any help you can provide.

for more information, contact CALM (Citizens Allied for Limiting Motors)