An Update on Waldo Lake Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association
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Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association 13200 Fielding Road President ARON FAEGRE 503-222-2546 Lake Oswego, Oregon 97034 Vice President BILL WAINWRIGHT 503-293-7627 Treasurer JAMIE GREENE 503-292-1495 Secretary JOHN CHLOPEK 503-810-7690 March 2009 Volume 30, Issue 1 CSPA An Update on Waldo Lake e-BULL-A-TON By Aron Faegre Inside this issue: As of a month ago both Stewart and federal government owns the lake. CSPA have each filed requests for sum- Cloran filed a brief with all the reasons President’s Message mary judgments with the court asking why the case should go on and not An Update on Waldo Lake 1-2 the judge to make his ruling. This is be- stop, and attached the Carrier affida- By Aron Faegre cause we feel the record strongly sup- vit. The judge said let’s have a confer- ports a finding that Waldo Lake is navi- Jamie Greene, making us proud. 3 ence call with all parties and talk gable, which means the Forest Service about it on Tuesday (before the The TSA Proposed LASP, and (FS) is not the agency allowed to regu- planned Friday meeting). At the con- “Playbook” Operations: An Opinion 3-5 from the Alaskan Experimental Air- late seaplane use of the lake. If the lake ference call there was extensive dis- craft Association. is navigable, it is owned by the State of cussion, following which the judge Watercraft Border Crossing Oregon, and it is the State that is al- said “no.” He said he wanted to have 6 By “Chuck I-Am-a-Boat” Jarecki lowed to regulate seaplane use. We a decision out by July when the FS want the judge to now make a ruling. rules take effect. He then gave the FS Diversions: Links to videos: 7 a one week extension to get their final On the federal government side, the Colorado Action brief turned in, since they had missed strategy appears to be the inverse - to By John Proctor the deadline (as best I understand it). try to keep the trial going as long as pos- AOPA Response 8 sible, by any means. Presumably this The meeting between the FS and relates to the federal government hav- Stimulus Help for Aircraft Purchases 9 Gov’s office is odd, because the State ing essentially unlimited funds, while hadn’t joined the suit to protect its 2009 OFF Proficiency Training they know normal private parties like interests (probably not wanting to Independence State Airport CSPA don’t have unlimited funds. This appear anti-environment), so formally Memorial Day Tribute 10 has resulted in an odd twist in the case. the state isn’t even part of the case. So how does the FS think it can solve TFR Information—Bruce Hinds A month ago, instead of responding to the court case with the State? B.C. Parks Pre-Authorization 11 our summary judgment briefs, the FS Washington Aviation Study instead asked the court for an indeter- Our attorney Carson Bowler sug- minate halt to all proceedings because gested we try to find out about this “the Forest Service is going to be meet- planned closed door Friday meeting. I Idaho New Recreational Airfield 12 Opportunity. ing with the Governor’s office on Friday tried, but was unable to find out any- next week and we may come to a reso- thing specific. I left messages asking A Note From the OPA 13 lution of the whole thing” [I am para- what the meetings with the FS are phrasing since I don’t know the actual about, whether someone is represent- CSPA Classified 14 words]. At that point Stewart’s attor- ing aviation, like Oregon Department ney, Bill Cloran, got an affidavit from of Aviation, and that we’d like to be at LASP Update: 3/16/2009 15 Mike Carrier (the Gov’s Natural Re- the table if there are seaplane rights source specialist) who in that document being discussed. I received no calls acknowledged unequivocally that the back. We still can’t find out what oc- Bull-a-Ton Newsletter Editor: State of Oregon does not agree that the curred in the meeting. Mary Chlopek Page 2 Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association The following week I got a call from Bowler, who said In spite of those concerns, I told Bowler to say, “yes Karen Bratis (FS attorney) wants to know if we want to we are willing to sit down with FS.” I felt we should discuss things with them, presumably for a settlement. be open to working positively with the federal gov- The FS needs to pass an “order” implementing the ernment on these issues. So then the FS said back to plan, and presumably the FS could include language Bowler, “what would we be looking for?” So I re- allowing seaplanes use of Waldo (under negotiated ferred them back to the negotiations we had a year terms) in that implementing order if we agreed to and a half ago during the appeal process, which the drop the lawsuit. FS had unilaterally terminated. I said we wanted to continue where those conversations had left off, I usually brainstorm our legal decisions with our CSPA which was with the idea that a seaplane might be VP Bill Wainwright, and did so in this case. We con- considered a “vehicle of arrival” like a car or RV, but cluded I should talk with Steven Stewart to get his in- that after landing (perhaps at designated preferred put on the issue. We felt that conferring with Stewart locations) the seaplane might have no more was an important first step out of respect for the fact “powered rights.” Under this idea we might negoti- that he has carried the major financial and legal load. ate terms such that we don’t use the seaplanes like My tendency is to go to a settlement meeting with power boats on the lake – no motoring tours around hopes that some good can come out of it. I also re- the lake, no practice landings, etc. membered that when the accident on the Willamette occurred and that some were calling for passing a bill The FS didn’t even respond to our response. So ap- eliminated seaplane use on all of the Willamette River. parently they decided they didn’t want to negotiate In that case Dave Wiley started up settlement discus- after all. After a few weeks the FS did turn in their sions that got all parties together and in the end devel- responses to summary judgment. And that lead to oped our Oregon seaplane rules which are reasonable the normal “responses to responses” and and truly serve the interests of seaplane safety while “responses to responses to responses” by the vari- allowing their regular use of the river. ous parties. Not surprisingly, the FS is attempting to have the court delete Stewart’s expert testimony I called and talked to Stewart. Stewart reminded me about the history of Waldo Lake and why it is naviga- that this is his third attempt to stop the FS from taking ble and owned by the State. over ownership of Waldo Lake over a 15 year period. He won the first two. But he said “they just keep com- That is where it stands. There may be one more oral ing back.” Stewart pointed out that if we got a memo argument session in front of the judge. But then we of understanding (MOU) with the FS allowing seaplane should expect a decision before July 17. I’ll appreci- use, how long would it be good for? They could turn ate any comments you, our membership, may have. around the next month and say they changed their minds. In fact Stewart says there is already a MOU be- tween the FS and State about how to jointly run Waldo Lake (with the State Marine Board in charge of the rules for the lake) which has been in place for over twenty years. But this whole legal issue is because the FS up and ignored the MOU and now wants to control the lake by itself. So Stewart’s point was that the only Aron Faegre result that would truly be meaningful as to who has President Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association the right of control over the lake is a judge’s ruling. Volume 30, Issue 1 Page 3 Congratulations are in order to Jamie Greene, mild-mannered shorts-enthusiast, CSPA Treasurer, Head of Flight Operations at Aero Maintenance Flight School, Pearson Field in Vancouver, WA., on obtaining his CFII rating. Nicely done Mr. Greene! The TSA and Other LASP Issues This isn’t really Seaplane information, but the way things are going we need to be proactive on all things that are GA related. I imagine the droids at TSA will be visit- ing Seaplane bases next. Apparently the Notice on this came out last year anandd was open for comment for 60 days. As you will see it raised a few eyebrows. Bill Wainwright Page 4 Columbia Seaplane Pilots Association See the following WebPages for more information: http://www.eaa.org/govt/tsa.asp http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/gasecurity/ http://www.nbaa.com/ops/security/programs/lasp/ http://download.aopa.org/epilot/2009/090126tsa.pdf http://download.aopa.org/epilot/2009/090128LASP_Hearing_Testimony-Houston.pdf Write your congressional representatives. Let them know how this program affects Joe The Pilot: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml . The following is excerpted from the Alaska EEA’s (Anchorage Chapter 42), response to the new TSA Program.