Opposition, safety concerns send races south to Umpqua

By Matt Neznanski

Gazette-Times reporter

Plans to hold a series of jetboat races on the Willamette and Santiam rivers on Memorial Day weekend have been canceled due to public outcry against the event.

Members of the Southern Oregon Powerboating Association have withdrawn a bid to close portions of the rivers around Corvallis, Eugene and Lebanon to host world championship jetboat races on one of the busiest weekends of the summer.

"(The Marine Board) just had too many letters of complaint," said Tim Harding, SOPBA vice president. "The end result was to take it to a community that wanted us."

Race organizers had asked the state Marine Board for a permit to shut down stretches of the two rivers for much of the weekend.

In February, the Marine Board asked for public input about the plan because the river typically draws so many rowers, boaters, swimmers and other recreational users over the long Memorial Day weekend to a waterway that is owned by the public.

Ashley Massey, spokeswoman for the Marine Board, said the agency had received more than 1,000 e-mails and letters about the race. She said the letters had not yet been tallied to determined how many were against the event and how many were in support.

Harding said a world champion jetboat event attracts racers from the U.S., New Zealand, Mexico and Canada. Races leading up to the world championship event are planned starting in Oregon on May 16 in Gold Beach. The series will continue in Hoopa, Calif., and Grants Pass. The racing association is considering Klamath Falls or Klamath, Calif., as alternate locations for its final event.

Conservation organization Willamette Riverkeeper encouraged its 1,500 members to urge the Marine Board to deny the application. The group officially opposed the race and argued that a better location would be Detroit Lake or some other body of water where motorboating is more common.

This kind of jetboat racing typically features 20-foot aluminum craft ranked in different classes based on the size of the boat's motor. Speeds range from 75 to 120 mph.

For an event of this magnitude, a minimum of 20 safety boats, fire and ambulance, dive teams and marine patrols from Lane, Linn, Benton and Marion counties would have been required.

Benton County Sheriff Diana Simpson said that was a main sticking point for her department, which has only four deputies working on the river in two boats each summer weekend.

"I told them we didn't have the resources above and beyond what we'd already scheduled," she said. "We just don't have the budget."

The Marine Board contracts with county sheriffs to supply the river patrols. Associated costs are paid by state boat registration funds.

Besides the on-river support, extra help would have been needed at each boat launch to make sure nonrace boats weren't on the water.

Benton County parks officials were also concerned about notifying kayakers and rafters who don't need formal boat ramps to launch.

Race organizers had promised to station people at each access point on the river, but even with that kind of support, it would have been difficult to actually keep people off the water that weekend.

"Memorial Day is the start of summer," Simpson said. "It doesn't even have to be that warm; if it's just sunny, people want to be on the river."

Matt Neznanski can be reached at 758-9518 or matt.neznanski@ lee.net.