Boating safety rules studied

Idahoans could see efforts to set a minimum age limit for operating Jet Skis and other personal watercraft on state waterways through potential legislation next year, Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation officials said Saturday.

The legislation would aim to make it unlawful for people younger than 16 to operate personal watercraft, except 14- and 15-year-olds who take a six-hour boating safety course, said David Dahms, the department’s boating program manager. The potential measure also would require users to attach engine kill-switch lanyards and forbid passengers riding in front of operators, he said.

The Idaho Parks and Recreation Board signed off on the concept at its August board meeting, Dahms said.

Dahms was one of several department employees in Coeur d’Alene Saturday for an annual, national boating-access conference. Sewage, invasive weeds and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance were among topics slated for discussion by state officials and industry representatives at the States Organization for Boating Access event.

Organizers expected the four-day event, held at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, to draw about 240.

“Probably our biggest issue, especially up north, is just the amount of access,” said David White, north region manager for the department. “Use and demand has outgrown the amount of access that’s out there.”

Parking at Farragut State Park at the southern end of Lake Pend Oreille, for example, has become inadequate, and officials are noticing a similar problem at Higgins Point on Lake Coeur d’Alene, White said.

“It’s just so much growth has occurred, and water recreation obviously being one of the top things people do here in North Idaho, and it’s not just Idahoans. We get to serve a lot of the Spokane and Eastern Washington area,” he said.

“Everything around the lakes now is so landlocked with homes or private businesses that it’s hard to (find) a piece of land that may be affordable to purchase on behalf of public access,” said Maria Petris, assistant supervisor for Kootenai County Parks and Waterways. “I think that’s probably the biggest challenge.”

Officials plan to give conference attendees tours of several local access areas, including Farragut and Higgins Point.

“So that’s how we look at it as a benefit to us, is having all these people up here to share with them what we’re doing in North Idaho,” White said.

A few boaters and personal watercraft riders put in at the resort’s marina, where Kim Jackson, boat education safety coordinator for the parks department, said the water was a chilly 61 degrees Fahrenheit.

Nearby, some attendees spent much of Saturday on a docked cruise ship discussing the Clean Vessel Act, which provides money to states for installing sewage “pumpout” and dump stations.

“More and more states are going to no discharge, even if you treat sewage, so that’s a big issue,” said Terry Boyd, SOBA president and head of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Idaho law prevents sewage discharge into waterways.

Boyd said boaters nationally also face potentially harmful new federal rules about the discharge of certain fluids, such as gray water, bilge water and ballast. Last year, a federal judge ruled against part of the Clean Water Act exempting discharges for recreational vessels. In addition to larger, oceangoing ships, it could affect an “extremely large” number of vessels, requiring them to get EPA discharge permits, starting in September 2008, according to the EPA.

Recreational boating advocates fear it will create complex regulations that impair their activity. Some U.S. senators have said they will address the issue.

Another potential change to Idaho’s rules conceptually approved by the parks board would prohibit “teak surfing” – pulling people while they hold onto the stern. It poses safety threats from carbon monoxide and propeller strikes, Dahms said.

Legislation also could be proposed to ban riding on the bow or other nonstandard parts of a motor boat that’s traveling at more than 5 mph, Dahms said.

The state Legislature convenes in January.

Parks department employees had planned to launch the Sea Dart, a 20-foot plywood-hull sailboat owned by the late Tristan Jones, that the state had used as a floating classroom about boater safety. But the aging vessel, which Jones sailed on Lake Titicaca in Peru, had been out of the water for too many years.

“It was taking water on pretty good,” Jackson said.

Saturday evening, the historic vessel sat on a grassy patch south of marina, where it will rest through Tuesday, Jackson said.