NYCkayaker HPBG reports saved for posterity thanks to Bruce Taterka

[ralph diaz]

Bonnie cites a good article giving the atmosphere that prevailed in the late 1990s.  There is, and I assume still exists, a Harbor Committee which joins together commercial interests using the harbor as well as land facilities such as oil transfer stations and the like.  As the numbers of kayakers increased, the group got concerned.  We managed to get on to the committee (they couldn't well deny us access since we are harbor users).  Individuals like me, Bonnie, Bruce T., Jim Wetteroth and Randy Henriksen attended the monthly meetings off and on. 

To some degree, our presence softened some of the concern as usually happens when a face can be attached to an "enemy".  But there was one individual who generally egged the group on, playing on theire worse fears.  He sought to be an interface between us and the commercial interests.  I think he was looking to making it a paying job.  The justified suspicion we had of him was that he was telling the commercial operators that he could control us while making certain their interests were upheld.   It was he who was spearheading the bogus strobe light thing and creation of the limited corridors where we could paddle or row.

I will furnish you his name back channel . . . I don't know if he is still around.  Not all the commercial people were "bad"  Some of them seemed reasonable and, in fact, we did remain in constant contact with them and they seemed okay.  You have to understand that it wasn't just the paddlers that concerned them.  They hated power boaters because they would get in the way of large vessels with limited maneuvering room.  One senior commercial represented said openly that if she had her way they would not be a pleasure boat allowed in the harbor, East River and lower Hudson.

Here is a funny story.  I first went to one of those harbor meetings in the mid 1990s after meeting of some kayakers with a high ranking Coast Guard spokesman who recommended that we attend.  I went with Josh Bloomgarten, a fellow member of the Hudson River Watertrail Assoc.   We were  a bit scruffy looking in a sea of suits and ties.  The commercial operators looked at us with suspicion.  Who the hell were we?  So when people around the table were asked to identify themselves, they listened to see who we were.   We identified ourselves as kayakers and you could hear the sighs of relief trickle around the room.  They had thought we were environmentalists.  Now that's a group that ranks well below us in their eyes!

ralph diaz
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Erik Baard 
  To: ralph diaz 
  Cc: bonnie13 at earthlink.net ; nykayak 
  Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 2:08 PM
  Subject: RE: NYCkayaker HPBG reports saved for posterity thanks to Bruce Taterka


  Ralph, could you identify those "interests" who were trying to keep us off the water? That's the kind of institutional memory we absolutely need.

  Erik Baard

  http://www.licboathouse.org
  http://www.naturecalendar.com

   



    -------- Original Message --------
    Subject: Re: NYCkayaker HPBG reports saved for posterity thanks to
    Bruce Taterka
    From: ralph diaz <ralphdiaz at optonline.net>
    Date: Thu, May 31, 2007 1:55 pm
    To: bonnie13 at earthlink.net,  nykayak <nyckayaker at rockandwater.net>


Thanks for the information.  I had forgotten that Bruce had the memos
on his
website.

An aside regarding the lighting system.  The third paragraph mentioned
the
idea of having a special flashing light for human powered boats.  This
was
really a wolf in sheep's clothing.  It had been proposed by harbor
interests
that wanted us off the water.  Their point was something like "Gee, we
really want to help you.  Let's see if we can find some strobe that
would be
distinct from others.  Then we can work legislation through channels
to make
them official.  Meantime while we conduct studies, frame regulations
and get
them past, you will have to stay off the waters at night,  OK?"  The
process
would have dragged on for years, perhaps forever.

Another idea being cooked up by those same interests was to set up
special
areas in which kayakers/rowers could paddle.  For example, we could
operate
only in a corridor a narrow distance from the pier heads.  Also, paddlers
would not be allowed to cross the river except at some specific
locations,
spaced quite a distance apart.  If we had agreed to any of this it would
have been death by slow strangulation.  Forgotten was that we, like other
boaters, had absolute freedom of the seas, period.  Except of course for
security zones, something that did not happen until later after 9/11.

Be wary of any one offering to cut a special deal for you.

ralph diaz


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <bonnie13 at earthlink.net>
To: "nykayak" <nyckayaker at rockandwater.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 12:31 PM
Subject: NYCkayaker HPBG reports saved for posterity thanks to Bruce
Taterka


> Somebody checked my blog this morning looking for info on Ralph Diaz
lighting survey - I do have a link on a description I did of a funny
problem
I had with my Tektite Navlite (turns out that the LED's are so efficient
that the batteries actual start DENTING from repeated contacts long
before
they run out! - but looking at the log I don't think Google put 'em on
the
right post to find it.
>
> Bruce Taterka posted both of the reports that the Human-Powered Boating
Group did on his Delaware & Hudson Canoe & Kayak Club.
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~taterka/LightMemo.html
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~taterka/FerryMemo.html


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