TRR photo by David Hulse    Acting Upper Delaware National Park Service (NPS) Superintendent Sandra Schultz shows one of the new boating safety display panels the NPS is placing at some 22 riverside bulletin boards throughout the Upper Delaware.    Separately reporting on the June 4 death of a 53-year-old New Jersey woman, the area’s first boating-related drowning in several years, Schultz said the tragedy might have been prevented if the woman had been wearing a life jacket. (Click for larger image)

Council to revisit river planning history

By DAVID HULSE

NARROWSBURG — Two decades later and you can still start an argument by mentioning details of the planning effort for the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River.

Members of the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) got into it last week as they began discussing which members of the original planning group would be invited back to speak about the 1988 river management plan. The UDC is preparing for a mandated 15-year review of the plan with a workshop this fall, said UDC executive director Bill Douglass. The workshop is designed to fill in some of the history of the process for newer members of the council.

The idea was to provide a list of names, including professional and local planners from the project and ask member townships to select a half-dozen they would most like to invite back, and then rank their selections by priority. A three-page list of candidates was included, with the names of deceased and still active people crossed off.

Tusten’s Charles Wieland said an immediate problem with the ballot was that two planners, Robert “Chuck” Hoffman and Michael Gordon, had not been named in the cover letter as “automatic” selections. “I thought we had agreed that these people were so vital that we would reschedule if they were not available,” he said.

Shohola’s Bruce Selnick agreed with Weiland.

But Executive Director Bill Douglass said no automatic choices had been agreed upon. Townships should take care to select those they want to attend.

Hancock’s George Frosch, who recently spoke in opposition to a memorial UDC resolution on Gordon’s retirement from the NPS, said he felt another private planner, Michael Priesnitz, should have been the automatic selection. “I can’t see Gordon [being invited],” he said.

“That’s your opinion,” Wieland shot back.

The mandated review will reopen the management plan for revisions. While UDC members have repeatedly stated the need for updating areas of the plan, some also see it reopening sensitive land use issues that stirred heated controversy in the past.