Resource Name (Heading 1) - USDA Forest Service - US ...
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Resource Name (Heading 1) - USDA Forest Service - US ...
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Summary of Public Comments - Managing Recreation Uses in the<br />
Upper Segment of the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River Corridor EA<br />
conflicts that may threaten OR values or the Wilderness resource. The alternatives in the<br />
Environmental Assessment, Managing Recreation Uses in the Upper Segment of the Chattooga<br />
Wild and Scenic River Corridor combine groups of actions to address these issues from existing<br />
use or the reintroduction of boating. These actions include a mix of direct and indirect use<br />
restrictions.<br />
Existing uses can be managed without use limits through monitoring of parking occupancy to<br />
indicate whether capacities are being approached. For the reintroduction of boating, direct<br />
measures on flow, time of year, and reach were needed to prevent user conflicts.<br />
The monitoring and adaptive management described in all alternatives will assess whether<br />
existing or new uses are causing resource impacts. Monitoring will indicate whether capacities or<br />
other management actions need to be adjusted. The <strong>Forest</strong> <strong>Service</strong> notes that there are daily<br />
boating limits on several WSRs (including the lower segment of the Chattooga WSR) but no<br />
analogous daily limits on swimmers, anglers, or hikers.<br />
J) Alternative 15 considered increasing visitor capacities, but this alternative was not considered<br />
in detail because during the Limits of Acceptable Change process there was a general opposition<br />
of increased recreation use levels. Alternative 2 did consider decreasing visitor capacity.<br />
All users are considered in the visitor capacities including boaters. See Appendix D of the<br />
Environmental Assessment, Managing Recreation Uses in the Upper Segment of the Chattooga<br />
Wild and Scenic River Corridor for the estimation of capacities and encounters. Backcountry<br />
capacities and encounters were derived from manager’s estimates in the Use Estimation<br />
Workshop (Berger and CRC 2007). “Logical calculations” in the Capacity & Conflict on the<br />
Upper Chattooga River (Whittaker and Shelby 2007) were used to estimate potential boating use<br />
and encounter rates on days when both boaters and other users might be present. The capacity for<br />
the entire segment refers to all users, and is designed to prevent use from exceeding typical<br />
current peaks. Because existing use levels generally do not exceed those capacities, boating<br />
alternatives generally try to prevent boating from adding use on days when existing uses would<br />
already be high. See Section 2.3 Monitoring and Adaptive Management in Chapter 2 of the<br />
Environmental Assessment, Managing Recreation Uses in the Upper Segment of the Chattooga<br />
Wild and Scenic River Corridor for information on how all uses will be monitored to identify<br />
changes and management actions that will be triggered if capacities are exceeded. Boaters are<br />
identified for a self-registration system (as on the lower segment of the Chattooga), but all uses<br />
will be monitored and boaters are not singled out for permits that would limit use.<br />
K) See Appendix D of the Environmental Assessment, Managing Recreation Uses in the Upper<br />
Segment of the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River Corridor for the estimation of capacities and<br />
encounters. Backcountry capacities and encounters were derived from manager’s estimates in the<br />
Use Estimation Workshop (Berger and CRC 2007). “Logical calculations” in the Capacity &<br />
Conflict on the Upper Chattooga River (Whittaker and Shelby 2007) were used to estimate<br />
potential boating use and encounter rates on days when both boaters and other users might be<br />
present. Some alternatives in the Environmental Assessment, Managing Recreation Uses in the<br />
Upper Segment of the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River Corridor include boating prohibitions<br />
(assuming a social values conflict), while others vary the proportion of days with boating<br />
(assuming “face-to-face” conflict). For boating alternatives, the primary issue is reducing the<br />
level of conflict by separating uses by space, time, or flow. After conflict issues have been<br />
addressed, boating alternatives consider use limits to prevent backcountry encounters from<br />
exceeding the desired condition. All alternatives are trying to reduce user conflicts and maintain<br />
certain recreation experiences as described in the purpose and need of the EA.<br />
L) As discussed in the Capacity & Conflict on the Upper Chattooga River (Whittaker and Shelby<br />
2007), “no survey data estimate the relative numbers of users who see the boating issue in terms<br />
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