Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Rules and Regulations

The push for regulations provided another test for the Park Service as the agency sought to define its responsibilities and assert control over the lands and water of the newly established recreation area. The 1946 agreement required the Park Service to make and enforce rules and regulations concerning recreational use of the area as well as provide for the protection and conservation of resources. In a memo on July 11, 1947, the Secretary of the Interior set out departmental policy for the development and administration of recreational areas at reservoir sites. Greider was told to follow these guidelines while writing rules for LARO, using the regulations for Shasta Lake Recreational Area, approved in October 1947, as a guide. He completed his draft by September 1948. [91]

The draft rules and regulations for LARO dealt with all aspects of recreation. There was no fee for camping or swimming, but these activities were restricted to designated areas and common-sense rules, such as a prohibition on swimming without proper attire. Visitors could hunt, fish, and trap in accordance with applicable state and federal laws, but the superintendent could restrict these activities in areas of concentrated visitor use and could prohibit guns in certain areas. Boaters came under the most regulations and were the only ones required to pay a fee for use of the reservoir area. Annual permit costs ranged from $1 for a canoe or rowboat up to $10 for a boat over forty feet long. Boats were allowed to moor only at public docks or areas designated by the superintendent, and anyone planning a trip of more than four hours had to report destination and estimated time of return to a dock master. An initial legal review suggested that the Park Service might not have authority to regulate boat traffic on navigable waters, but Greider thought they could get around this since they controlled all the shore land and lake access and could essentially trade use of the land for reasonable control over boaters. [92]

Release of the draft regulations generated a mixed review. Much of Greider's concern centered on responses from the Grand Coulee Dam Yacht Club. The membership in 1949 seemed to support the need for some regulation, although a few members questioned the Park Service's authority to regulate boating on navigable waters. Greider was wary of the Yacht Club, however, since some of its more vocal members had been challenging other aspects of Park Service administration at LARO. Director Drury recognized by May 1949 that the proposed rules and regulations were "a major problem," and he urged that they be issued as soon as possible. [93] Greider did not want to rush, however, noting that "the importance of having complete control can not be over emphasized." [94]

Grand Coulee Dam Yacht Club picnic at Plum Point, July 1944. Photo courtesy of Grant County Historical Society and Museum, BOR Collection (12292-3).

In the year following the release of Greider's draft regulations for LARO, the Park Service drafted a set of rules and regulations to govern all three National Recreational Areas: Lake Mead, Millerton Lake, and Lake Roosevelt. Greider found the new draft "wholly inadequate for this area" and suggested a rewrite. "Although we have already given the Washington Office our final advice on these regulations after two years of study of the problem," he groused, "we will prepare a new draft as soon as possible." [95] One of his particular criticisms concerned the addition of permit fees for the area, but he was overruled by the Regional Director who believed that Greider's concerns over collection difficulties and bad public relations would be overcome eventually. Greider countered that a greater problem was case law that held that all navigable waters in the country were to be considered common highways, free for all citizens to use. The Director, however, seemed less concerned with legal issues than public opinion, and he sided with Greider in ruling against imposition of fees. Frank A. Banks reviewed the draft regulations for Reclamation and complained that they did not recognize his agency's paramount rights in connection with the dam. He maintained that while Reclamation needed to keep the Park Service informed about its planned activities, its contractors could burn without permits, exceed weight limits on roads, and land boats wherever they needed. [96]

The new regulations met resistance from users of Lake Roosevelt. Initial comments from the Yacht Club were restrained. Greider had explained the changes to members and told them that the regulations would be issued by March 1950. Club members then requested that they be given a chance to comment prior to the new rules going into effect. The commodore described the club's divided opinion: some believed that new regulations were unnecessary since all the usual laws of navigation applied to the lake, while others did not object to sensible regulations to protect government lands. He stressed that members wanted to be reasonable and were not criticizing the Park Service. Although Department of Interior (DOI) officials believed they had fulfilled any need for public input, they decided to publish the proposed rules in the Federal Register to allow for additional comment. By late March 1950, Greider believed that the controversy had nearly run its course. He attributed the discord to a small group within the Yacht Club and suggested that other public groups were anxious to see the Park Service proceed with the more important work of developing the national recreation area. Greider emphasized the need to put the regulations into effect as soon as possible since "undoubtedly the long drawn out process of preparing them has permitted the dissenters to develop their case far beyond what the circumstances warrant." [97]

Despite Greider's wish for quick resolution, public comments became increasingly nasty. In general, people viewed negatively any restriction on their free use of the recreation area, whether it was the requirement for boat permits or the limitation of camping to designated areas. Congressman Walt Horan listened to his constituents and had harsh words for DOI's proposed regulations, calling many "unreasonably restrictive, some purely obnoxious and a few so downright silly as to be unenforceable." He approved proposed congressional legislation to give statutory authority for such rules, but he wanted to ensure that no regulation subject to punitive enforcement could be passed without a public hearing. Horan, interested in the development of the new NRA, warned that "the issuance and attempted enforcement of some of the regulations proposed in the current draft would raise a storm of protest so great as to retard indefinitely all hope of making this the first-class resort area it should become." [98]

The initially cooperative Yacht Club realized that the proposed regulations threatened free boating, and members began to question the Park Service's authority to restrict their pastime. The club had formed in February 1939 as the waters began rising behind Grand Coulee Dam. Its membership was primarily Reclamation employees, which strained relations between that agency and the Park Service. Greider believed that some Reclamation employees were unsympathetic toward the Park Service's responsibilities in managing reservoir areas, and he worried that such attitudes might cause the public to be concerned about cooperation between the two federal agencies. [99]

The controversy over regulations simmered for another year at LARO as the Park Service tinkered with the proposed rules and comments continued to trickle in. It heated up by early summer, following publication of the proposed regulations in the Federal Register on May 19, 1951. The Park Service intended to allow thirty days for comments before putting the new rules into effect. Once again, things did not go as planned. In an effort to quell the opposition, Superintendent Greider and "Red" Hill, Assistant Regional Director, held a public meeting at the Yacht Club on June 1. Approximately thirty-five people attended, representing a variety of sportsmen's groups. Greider began by giving some general information on the regulations, assuring the audience that the rules had been developed using suggestions from local residents as well as people who lived near the other two NRAs. The audience, however, was suspicious of any governmental control and concerned about what they saw as unnecessary restrictions. Frank A. Banks proposed a rewording of the camping section from prohibiting camping outside of campgrounds except in designated areas to permitting camping in all areas excepted those specifically closed by the superintendent. Greider seemed to agree. "Some feel it is written backwards," he admitted. "However, these are written by the best legal talent in the Department. That's the way they want it, to have the proper control where necessary." When people objected to the need for boat permits, Greider assured them that they would not be inconvenienced since permits would be readily available at main boating areas. [100]

Unquestionably, some of the animosity was aimed not just at the Park Service but also at Superintendent Greider personally. Clifford Koester, a regular critic from Coulee Dam, worried that "the Superintendent might get out of bed on the wrong side and it would be a tough day on the part of a lot of boat owners." Greider reminded Koester that the regulations were standardized and worked smoothly in other National Parks, as they would at LARO. Mr. Butler, commodore of the Grand Coulee Dam Yacht Club, was even more pointed: "Isn't it true, Mr. Greider, that any time that a group . . . figured that the Superintendent was getting out of hand they could get pretty fair recourse through the Regional Office?" he asked. "We could go to Mr. Hill and he would slap your ears down?" "I wouldn't be surprised," Greider responded. [101]

Comments increased, continuing to come in well after the June 19th deadline when the regulations were to take effect. While a few were unopposed, the majority had at least modest suggestions for change. The Park Service listened to the complaints and held up implementation to modify the regulations. For instance, it changed the camping section from a negative to a positive statement, permitting camping except where posted. Hunting and trapping restrictions were similarly altered. Boat permits were dropped and replaced with voluntary registration to aid in recovery of lost or stolen craft. The public may not have seen these changes immediately because protests escalated in the fall of 1951. Organizations began to call for cancellation of the Tri-Party Agreement and removal of Park Service authority at Lake Roosevelt. Some took their complaints to the Columbia Basin Commission (CBC) which, in turn, asked DOI to put the regulations on hold until the CBC and other groups had a chance to make their views known. Oscar Chapman, Secretary of the Interior, responded that the process had been going on for two years and he doubted that further public meetings would be of any benefit. He suggested an early meeting between the CBC and the Park Service to review the current draft since DOI wanted to issue the regulations soon. Instead, the CBC passed a resolution in early November asking DOI not to treat the area "as a national park, but as a sparsely inhabited recreational area," changing the regulations to give people "the greatest unrestricted use of the region." [102]

Before the end of 1951, Greider went to the regional office to rework the regulations with Superintendent Hugh Peyton from Millerton Lake NRA in California. National Park Service Director Conrad L. Wirth recommended approval in mid-May 1952, and several weeks later the Secretary of Interior issued the final regulations. "We believe . . . that every effort has been made to simplify them," he wrote, "and that an honest attempt has been made to meet . . . the objections received from the local people and organized groups interested in the Area." After living under the rules for a season, the Yacht Club's Commodore Butler, formerly a vocal critic, reassured Congressman Walt Horan that the regulations had been improved so that "the people of the area will be able to go along with them without feeling over-regulated to an irritating degree." [103]