The River Reporter Online - Letters to the Editor

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The River Reporter welcomes letters on all subjects from its readers. They must be signed and include the correspondent's phone number. The correspondent's name and town will appear at the bottom of each letter; titles and affiliations will not, unless the correspondent is writing on behalf of a group.

Letters are printed as they are received, or at the discretion of the editor, and without correction to grammar or spelling. It is requested they be limited to 500 words; correspondents may be asked to cut longer letters. Deadline is 1:00 p.m. on Monday.

To all concerned citizens of the Town of Highland, recently a convicted child molester has moved in our hamlet of Barryville. Statistics prove two percent of child molesters are rehabilitatable (sometimes).

Please come to the town board meetings, Eldred Town Hall, the second Tuesday of the month, and voice your view on what we should do. Do we want him to stay and take that chance of one of our children being a victim? Everyone deserves a second chance; do we want our children exposed to that chance?

Recently I encountered a discerning observation made by Judge Roland Williams of Australia. He, like others who have watched organized gambling develop, said, “It’s absolutely astounding the governments were prepared to allow this situation to occur. You didn’t have to be an Einstein a few years ago to work out what was going to happen. We don’t encourage heroin users, we don’t encourage alcoholics but we do, as a community, encourage gamblers.”

Most of our own wily politicians (for reasons best known to them) appear to be just as hell-bent on shoving casino gambling down our throats—while cynically and manipulatively managing to avoid asking whether most of us (the people who elected them) want it. One must wonder why?

Last night I went to the Tusten Theater. Many of us were admiring the beautiful floral display in front of your town hall. Whoever is responsible for creating this beautiful garden has been doing a great job. All of the plants were amazingly healthy and well maintained. More than 10 of us were ohh-ing and ahh-ing over the display.

However, there was one plant that impressed us the most … but none of us could name it. It has huge waxy green leaves and very large exotic pink trumpet-shaped flowers. The tendrils curled themselves around the fence.

2. Would you please give a copy of this letter to the person who had the fine taste to choose that lovely plant and who has nurtured all of the plants to such an amazingly healthy condition?

3. Would you please put a copy of this letter into that person’s personnel file? I want him or her to know how much we appreciate the beauty he or she has created. Thank you.

As someone who occasionally takes a canoe trip on the Delaware, I have a few reflections on your recent article in regard to a June 21st drowning on the river at Staircase Rapids.

The underlying philosophy of your article is that people don’t take responsibility for their actions and as a result accidents happen.

There is of course a kernel of truth in this assumption, just as there is a kernel of truth in every stereotype.

Obviously a driver who sustains head injury due to a lack of seat belt is not blameless nor is a boater who ends up in Staircase, river right, in its hydraulic without a jacket (especially when the gauge reads four plus feet).

I believe there probably now have been over 40 drownings in the Upper Delaware section of the river since 1980. In nearly every case there was no life vest.

But, are only the victims always at fault and the other key players mere disinterested by-standers? I think not.

For example, don’t the liveries have some responsibility here? Suppose liveries insisted on life vests at all times on the river? Couldn’t some of these drownings have been avoided?

The National Park Service (NPS) has jurisdiction on the water, and they have enforcement responsibilities, too. NPS sets the rules for water use. Don’t they share some responsibility due to their nonfeasance on the life jacket issue?

A unified livery and NPS response largely would end this problem. It is ironic that all of these drownings could occur when at the same time a method to stop them is so simple.

Supporting a mandatory life jacket policy would be tangible and concrete: i.e. accepting real responsibility. Suggesting more safety information is merely lip service. In legalese this approach to the problem is termed the ostrich defense. Freud, though, merely characterized it as anal. Liveries could write NPS and ask for a change of policy and send a copy to this paper to make a firm and clear public stand. This would be real safety information and not mere PR flatulence.

An accident is not a fortuitous occurrence nor an unplanned event. The word is often misused by sloppy analysis. Sadly most accidents are caused by design. The only unknown is when they will occur and why they occur so infrequently.

The river is exceedingly deceptive. Particularly so, above three feet at the gauge. In general it flows faster and flatter but its holes tend to open up with the increased volume. Boating without a jacket is probably akin to driving 80 mph on Route 97 in these conditions.

Alas, we all are to blame: boaters, livery owners, NPS, the media, river businesses and the public.

We need to establish an enforceable legal framework, which requires river users to wear life jackets (or be fined). Such a legal framework would support boaters who accept responsibility and discourage boaters who insist on being deviant. Most people will not pay a premium in order to be deviant. Such a framework is quite simple to achieve. NPS can change the rules; to will so, they need public support.

Most of us support seat belt requirements for auto use. The river is more benign, more seductive and it kills more slowly than highway trauma. The difference is on the river the use of a life vest can prolong your life; on the highway, the rules may only enhance the quality of your prolonged life.

If as a society we support rules regarding seat belt use, logic would support similar parameters in canoes.

Drivers who fail to use seat belts die more often. Boaters who fail to use PFDs drown more often. There is a reason for enforced rules in life.

Canoeists and other boaters need to insist on more responsible livery owners, livery owners must insist the NPS take more enforceable steps, the businesses of the valley that largely profit from these visitors need to demand more accountability from NPS and livery owners. And, the media needs to stop writing “love for the life vest” articles and instead write editorials calling for enforceable life jacket rules.

If it was reported that 40 people had died in Narrowsburg since 1980 from a curable disease, the public outrage would probably surpass the fight over the closing of schools.

But when we read about the drownings no one has any responsibility save the victim. Alas, something is truly amiss.