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What you'll find is that many find Buzz difficult to work with and that a number of boaters who were longstanding Chattooga Conservancy members resigned due to various things Buzz has written and said in the past two years or so. You'll also note that what Buzz is proposing now isn't all that different from Alternative 4, particularly with respect to the level the river would have to be running for boaters to get on it.
Here's a link to Don's account of the UC boater test.
When you think about it, most of the folks screaming at each other over this really have much more in common with each other than we have with the average Joe or Jane on the street. AW, and paddlers in general, have good relationships with the USFS (one of our board members is a USFS river ranger in WY), wilderness advocates (numerous joint efforts, especially in the Pacific Northwest) and anglers (I know several extraordinary boaters -- you'd know their names -- who make their livings as fishing guides) everywhere in the US EXCEPT the Upper Chattooga. Kevin Colburn has done a remarkable job helping non-paddling competing interests in other access battles find common ground in order to keep the processes moving (I saw this personally in my Choah work, which, incidently, I did as a representative of the Western Carolina Paddlers, not AW, and was impressed enough by what I saw to rejoin the AW fold). Of the four AW staff most responsible for our stewardship activities, one has a PhD in aquatic biology, one has a masters in environmental studies with a focus on stream restoration and ecology, and one had an extensive background river stewardship work and was hired away from the San Miguel Watershed Coalition. We are one of the founding members of the Outdoor Alliance, whose other members include the Access Fund (climbing), the American Canoe Association, the American Hiking Society, the International Mountain Biking Association and the Winter Wildlands Alliance.
My take is that the Upper Chattooga is a special case, made so both by an unusual access issue and some individuals with unusual quirks who should otherwise be our natural allies.
-- RS
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Do a BT search on Buzz Williams and read Don Kinser's account of the UC boater test New 
BoaterTalk 
