Rules for safe rafting could change
By Nick Budnick
A river guide at Big Eddy on the Upper Deschutes in 2007. A bill would require life jackets on this and other Class III rapids.
Between May 2001 and August 2008, 10 people died on Oregon rivers in rapids rated Class III or greater. Seven occurred on the Deschutes River, one on the McKenzie River and two on the Rogue River.
Of those:
• Five were wearing their life jackets properly.
• Four were not wearing life jackets.
• One was wearing the life jacket improperly.
Currently, state law requires all people floating Class III rapids on a guided trip to wear life jackets.
A bill introduced Thursday by state Rep. John Huffman, R-The Dalles, would extend that stricture to all floaters in Class III rapids, whether or not they are on a guided trip.
Source: Oregon State Marine Board
SALEM — A group of Deschutes River safety advocates on Thursday told state lawmakers that everyone who floats rivers in Oregon should have to wear a life jacket in dangerous whitewater.
“You will never know how many lives you have saved when you pass this bill — but I will,” said Mark Angel, a Redmond-based whitewater salvage diver who estimates he’s pulled eight corpses from the waters of Oregon and California in the last decade.
The Dalles Republican Rep. John Huffman, whose district includes Jefferson County and the northwest corner of Deschutes County, has introduced a bill that would require all floaters to wear life jackets while they are traversing rapids of Class III or greater.
Since 2006, rafting companies in Bend, Maupin and elsewhere in Oregon have been required to make sure their customers wear life jackets. Guides face a $10 fine if anyone in their vessels is caught violating the law. But people who are not part of a guided trip have no requirement other than that they have life jackets somewhere in their boats.
Huffman’s bill received an informational hearing Thursday before the House Emergency Services and Veterans Affairs Committee, and is expected to receive another hearing before the committee votes on it.
Class III, or intermediate, rapids are defined as requiring complex maneuvering in tight spaces in strong currents, possibly featuring large waves and obstructions such as “strainers” — logs hiding beneath the waves that can snag a person’s body underwater and keep it there. American Whitewater, a nonprofit organization, classifies as Class III the stretch of Deschutes River between Dillon Falls and Lava Island Falls.
Class III “is where whitewater begins,” said a longtime Deschutes River patrol officer, Wasco County Marine Deputy Roger Pearce.
That level of rapids can be found on 16 rivers in Oregon, but it’s on the Deschutes River in the last decade where they’ve been the most dangerous.
From May 2001 through August, seven of the 10 whitewater fatalities in Oregon have occurred on the Deschutes. Of those, four were either not wearing life jackets or not wearing them properly.
Brandishing a cheap red life jacket in his left hand, Pearce, the river patrol officer who spearheaded the bill, told lawmakers that currently anyone can buy a $20 “rubber ducky” inflatable boat and — as long as they don’t have a guide — take on the toughest rapids in the state.
“All you have to do is take this and throw it in the bottom of your boat,” he said. “You’re legal.”
After the hearing, he said that while he sometimes goes days without spotting a rafter braving rapids without a life jacket, some days he’ll see entire boatloads. And river photographers who work for rafting companies often share their photos of rafts coming through rapids, where he sees “picture after picture” of people not wearing life jackets.
Beyond the effect on parents who lose their children, there’s also his agency’s cost of responding to river emergencies, which he said typically costs taxpayers from $1,000 to $5,000 each.
Sherry Holiday, a Wasco County commissioner who operates the county’s volunteer ambulance company, says whitewater fatalities have other costs as well. In 2006, a year when the Deschutes had six fatalities alone, “the phone stopped ringing in the middle of July” at Maupin rafting companies — which are key to the former logging town’s economy, she said.
Huffman said that just as with motorcycle helmets and seat belts, he thinks the infringement on individual rights represented by mandatory life jackets is outweighed by the benefit to society.
“There are certain things where it’s in the greater good, and you have to say, ‘We need to do this,’” he said.
No one spoke in opposition to the bill. It must be approved by both the House and the Senate in Salem before it can be signed into law by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
Nick Budnick can be reached at 503-566-2830 or nbudnick@bendbulletin.com.
March 31st, 2011 at 2:59 am
Believe in yourself.