Protecting National Wild & Scenic Rivers
June, 2021
Enacted in 1968, the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (WSR Act) has safeguarded rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values. The WSR Act also provides a framework for river use planning and management by federal and state agencies. As we celebrate National Rivers Month, Bill Valliere, Otak Research Analyst and member of Otak’s new Visitor Use Planning & Management (VUPM) team reflects on how his group’s work is aiding comprehensive river management plans and protecting national rivers.
While the team itself is new, their body of work is not. For example, Bill, and Steve Lawson, VUPM Director, have been working together on and off since 1999 on issues surrounding visitor use, management, and planning for outdoor recreation spaces—specifically with regard to how many people can visit natural places without either the experience or the resources being degraded. “Steve and I first met and worked on a project in Yosemite National Park that was eventually part of the Merced River comprehensive management planning. It was a very controversial, and complicated procedure, but it was ultimately successful,” Bill states, “More recently, we’ve been working with the U.S. Forest Service on some of their rivers that are in need of comprehensive river management plans.”
Otak’s VUPM team is dedicated to analyzing, modeling, and planning for visitation levels and patterns within the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, national parks, protected areas, and a wide variety of buildings and public spaces. Bill and the rest of the team offer a specific set of skills and expertise that public agencies typically do not have on staff but are critical to effective planning and use management. In the case of wild and scenic rivers, the VUPM team will be able to help ease a backlog of work.
Every river that is designated as a wild and scenic river needs to have a comprehensive management plan within three years of designation. Bill points out that “some of those rivers have gone beyond the three years and the Forest Service is trying to make up ground on the backlog of rivers that need to have these plans in place.” In this regard, the team will work primarily on the portion of those plans that deal with visitor use management and visitor capacity, providing key data on how many people specific river corridors can accommodate without degrading the wild and scenic designation values.
Through various studies, the VUPM team estimates the numeric capacities required by law. The team does not stop there, though. “We also provide strategies and tactics that managers may use to actually reduce impacts to the resources and potentially increase capacity,” Bill states. Trail design, access points, and other river features are brought into consideration with specific recommendations. “It’s a balancing act and we are often weighing different aspects of the river itself and the corridor to figure out where that capacity should be drawn from. A river may be designated because it holds a variety of outstandingly remarkable value, including recreation, wildlife, geology, or hydrology—there are a variety of values for which a river may actually be recognized. And those are the values we have to protect or improve upon.”
The capacity portion of the management plans is often a challenging part of the planning process for a given wild and scenic river. As one of the few firms providing visitor use and planning services of this nature, Otak is uniquely positioned to fill the gap with the expertise of its VUPM team who have been solving capacity and land use issues for more than 20 years. Bill and the team are excited about the work they are now able to do together and the impact they can have helping to protect our conserved spaces. “We want to help these land use and planning agencies be able to get those plans done so that they’re in compliance with the law and better manage the resources for present and future generations.”