The following letter was sent to President-Elect Obama by Great Lakes Boating Federation Chairman F. Ned Dikmen on November 13, 2008. 

A number of issues that the Great Lakes Boating Federation (GLBF), the advocacy voice for the 4.3 million Great Lakes boaters, has long been pushing should be included in the efforts of President-elect Obama’s transitional team.

Boating in America is big business: it annually injects $50 billion into the national economy, with $16 billion of that impacting the Great Lakes alone. There are 13 million registered boaters nationally. And 78 million U.S. residents, 73 percent of whom are fishermen, boat annually. Boats registered range in size from small to large, in age from old to new, and in value from Bentleys to Chevettes, with most falling in the latter category.

Contrary to popular perception, boaters are not all wealthy. Most are middle-class Americans—not just a bunch of rich folks. Boating, a family hobby and sport in coastal and rural America , is the best gift to tourism: it can keep travel-leisure expenditure at home. Unfortunately, however, boating is on the decline. The new administration must do everything in its powers to stop the erosion of this vital economic and recreational sector.

There are a number of federal agencies that can impact boating’s sustainability, but hardcore environmentalists in key positions have looked the other way and ignored the needs of boating for decades. It is time to appoint experts in boating advocacy and industry matters to federal boards and commissions that can affect the future of boating and ensure that it remains sustainable and viable.

For too long, recreational boats were seen as a polluting nuisance, as the enemy of the freshwater seas, as motorized vehicles that must be tolerated by the hardcore environmentalists. Because of a court action brought about by concerned environmentalists, boaters have been unjustly accused of playing a part in importing aquatic nuisances into the Great Lakes and other freshwater seas.

Early this year the Clean Boating Act of 2008 was passed. This bill re-amended the

original Clean Water Act to state that recreational boats are sufficiently clean to navigate freely in freshwater seas and waterways without submitting to discharge regulation. Boating was made to be free again. Boaters have been recognized and counted, at long last, as one of the stakeholders of the Great Lakes . Recreational boating can go to the new administration with a clean bill of health, while reminding the environmental watchdogs on the Great Lakes to heed the same truth.

Despite its best efforts, the Great Lakes Boating Federation failed to bring any help to boating during the Bush administration. To illustrate the difficulties encountered, some case histories are recited:

An attempt was made by the Great Lakes Boating Federation to place a recreational boating expert on the Ocean Policy Commission board. Not only did the request fall on deaf ears, but also none of the 700-page document in the Commission’s report made mention of the $50 billion recreational boating industry. This shunning of recreational boating started during the Clinton administration and has continued into the present Bush administration without any remedy.

A bi-national agency, the International Joint Commission (IJC) was advised by GLBF to appoint a representative of recreational boat owners to serve as a spokesman on its Public Interest Advisory Group panel to give advice on appropriate lake level decisions for marinas on the Great Lakes . GLBF did everything in its capacity to give impartial advice and a wealth of information to the IJC to aid in their decision-making process. Despite this, the IJC has shunned and ignored the GLBF’s recommendation to fill this key appointment in helping marinas to allow boating to remain sustainable.

On the lakes’ eastern front, the irresponsible actions of the IJC have cut four to six weeks from the autumn boating and tourist seasons each year on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River , resulting in the loss of billions in revenue. They allowed the regulation plan governing the outflows from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean to be altered to allow for unnatural low springtime and autumn levels. This was done to accommodate riparian interests at the expense of boating and tourism interests.

NOAA leadership asked the Great Lakes Boating Federation to help it create a bridge to the 4.3 million boaters on the Great Lakes . NOAA has many tools at its disposal that could help boating and boaters, from weather service data to the power to open new avenues for boating access on many waterways and freshwater seas through the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA). GLBF met with NOAA’s leadership and made available its media tools as vehicles to promote NOAA to boaters on the Great Lakes . GLBF went one step further and met 33 congressmen and senators, seeking their help to bring support for CZMA re-appropriations. Despite GLBF’s efforts, there is no evidence that NOAA has done anything in this important area.

GLBF requested that NOAA’s leadership appoint a representative of boat owners, an expert in recreational boating, to help coordinate needed boating water access through the CZMA. NOAA has had two years to act on this matter, but nothing has been done.

NOAA oversees the work of Sea Grants agencies that are housed in universities across the Great Lakes . Sea Grants are capable of conducting research on marinas, future marina sites, boater profiles and jobs that may be created by growing recreational boating. GLBF requested that NOAA leadership appoint a representative of boat owners, something they have never had, to NOAA’s Sea Grant Review Panel to facilitate this initiative. After two years of waiting, NOAA still has taken no action.

Between 1999 and 2002, the Great Lakes Commission received $500,000 from the Army Corps of Engineers to provide a much needed recreational boating study on the Great Lakes . This study was meant to identify the number of boats, jobs, boaters, harbors and marinas, as well as measure the true economic picture of boating’s impact on regional economies across the Great Lakes region. The industry has spent nine years waiting to attain this accurate and dependable boating study. To this day, no such official study has been accepted by the Corps, which provided the Great Lakes Commission the funding for the study.

Funding is needed for appropriations to the Corps of Engineers to serve the dredging needs of recreational boating harbors. Commercial navigation, with its economic impact of only $5 billion, has its dredging needs in commercial harbors met by the Corps of Engineers at the exclusion of recreational boat harbors, which bring in $16 billion annually. It is vital that the new administration focus on the needs of recreational harbors. It’s also important to reauthorize the NOAA-supervised CZMA and increase water access, which is becoming exceedingly unavailable at the water’s edge. The CZMA can provide access that is currently off-limits due to mass-scale habitation developments at water’s edge.

Coastal municipalities on the Great Lakes should be encouraged to embrace recreational boating in the face of declining manufacturing and shipping industries. It’s important to bolster the growing tide of cities that are looking for a brighter future in recreational boating. Recreational boating is in line with the new age facing America , the age of the service-based economy. Manufacturing, which used to be abundant on the shoreline, is rapidly moving inland and to other countries. Recreational boaters also would like to see the new administration support the National Invasive Species Act. Seventy-three percent of the boating community fishes, and invasive nuisances imported into the Great Lakes remain our predators and enemies.

Reauthorization of Wallop Breaux should also be a top priority for the new administration, because it provides the funding for sport fish restoration, boating safety, boating infrastructure grants, the Clean Vessel Act and other initiatives. As part of initiating major infrastructure projects, the Obama administration needs to prioritize the promotion, improvement and expansion of water access through water-based infrastructure projects.

Boating has never been given a helping hand from past administrations. With the end of the Bush administration and the start of President Obama’s first term, now is the time for the opening of a new chapter, one that sees boaters working together with the government to expand this huge industry and improve this popular recreational pastime.

When deciding who to appoint to positions in key agencies such as NOAA, the IJC, and the EPA, it is vital that the President-Elect keep in mind the interests of America ’s 13 million registered boaters. For the boating industry to survive these tough economic times, boating must be kept free of overregulation and boaters must be heard.