Rain dampens ’03 river recreation season

By DAVID HULSE

RIVER VALLEY — Last weekend’s sunshine brought people out of the woodwork for an opportunity to finally get outside, said Kittatinny Canoes owner Ruth Jones, but a cold, wet spring and near-record rainfall in June have already turned 2003 into a losing season for the valley’s outdoor recreation industry.

According to the Delaware River Basin Commission, by June 25, “rainfall in the Delaware River Basin has averaged 275 percent of normal for the month of June… most basin counties have already received between five and ten inches of rainfall.”

The rain gauge at the Shohola Elementary School registered 8.97 inches by month’s end. In downtown Shohola, Midtown Service Station owner Harry Graber said there was a noticeable decline in gasoline sales, especially over the June weekends.

“Enough so that my supplier commented on it when he called for the tank measurements,” Graber said.

Peter Merendino, owner of the Il Castello Restaurant in Barryville said the local customers kept his sales up during the week, but the weekend trade was off as much as 20 percent last month.

Joann Jahn of the Roebling Delaware Inn in Lackawaxen said her B&B business also was noticeably off last month.

“The water was too high for the boaters and the fishermen, and it was just cold and miserable for everybody else,” she said.

All kinds of businesses are affected.

Jim Carroll makes his living by painting barns. A resident of South Carolina, he spends about eight months a year in the northern states traveling around and painting. Prior to each season, he buys paint in large quantities. This year, due to the inordinate amount of rain, he is badly overstocked. The wet weather has had a serious impact on his business.

But the weather pain seemed to subside a bit further from the outdoor recreation trade.

Marketing Manager Sue Zieres of the Villa Roma Resort said the weather cut into Memorial Day reservations at the resort but has caused little impact other than reducing trade at the golf course.

Jim Law of the Sullivan County Chamber of Commerce says most of the indicators around Sullivan County are pointing to a good season.

“I’ll usually hear about it when something is wrong with business. When I don’t, I figure things are going all right,” he said.

Still, Jones said you can never make up a bad month on the river, especially with the loss of Memorial Day weekend. The loss of spring business means the loss of a lot of organizational group business, she said.

“Those people plan their outings all year long and schedule for them. They can’t reschedule. That business is just lost,” she said.

Rick Lander of Lander’s River Trips said the loss of the Memorial Day weekend was the real killer.

“That’s our biggest weekend of the season,” he said.

Nice weather last weekend was a tease for Lander.

“It’s graduation weekend all over New York State. Even with nice weather, there are not that many people free to get here,” he said.

Lander and Jones run the two largest boat livery and campground companies in the valley and employ hundreds of seasonal workers between them. Both managers said they had either cut hours or delayed bringing additional people on for the season.

“Our employees are pretty good about it,” Jones said. “They know they make more money when we make money.”

Lander said the weather losses get passed along.

“In a year like this, we don’t buy that new phone system we wanted, and maybe we don’t get the new vans or equipment that we normally do.”

Jones is hoping the last weekend sunshine finally broke the cycle of rainy weekends. Her campground customers seem to think so.

“We’re booked solid for the fourth of July,” she said.

(Richard A. Ross contributed information for this story.)