By: Bill Caruso, ACA New Jersey State Director and Chair of RAC State and Local Policy Committee
One of the tremendous benefits of the ACA Regional Activity Council (RAC) is the opportunity to offer coordinated support for state and local paddler advocacy. Most paddlers don’t have the time or resources to change public policy alone, but when we all work together we can accomplish great things!
Thankfully, the RAC can provide assistance to help paddlers voice their concerns about an issue and to channel those voices in such a way as to maximize our collective impact. This approach enables efficient problem solving at the state and local level using our lessons learned from all over the country. The goal is to empower each of us to be the eyes and ears of the organization, and to make it easy for our paddling community to tap into those tools when help is needed.
When an issue arises in your state it’s best to start by getting your ACA State Director and ACA Regional Chair involved. You can find the contact for your local ACA State Director and Regional Chair here.
They can help you triage and connect with resources like the ACA RAC State and Local Policy Committee, the ACA Board Policy Committee, and/or the ACA Public Policy Director Brett Mayer, depending on the nature of the issue and the advocacy needed.
Sometimes similar issues have been encountered in other jurisdictions so we need not reinvent the wheel on strategy and can focus on outreach and advocacy. Together, we can collectively develop an action plan to ensure that paddlers in your state have a voice on issues important to your community.
Here are two recent examples of how we’ve worked together to score some wins on behalf of paddlers around the country:
Freedom to Float battle in Georgia
Earlier this year, ACA Georgia joined forces with regional stakeholders to form the Freedom to Float Coalition including ACA Georgia, American Whitewater, Georgia Rivers (formerly Georgia River Network), Georgia Canoeing Association, and Tennessee Valley Canoe Club.
Together, the Freedom to Float Coalition worked to block bad legislation that threatened public recreational access to most Georgia rivers. Then the state legislature formed a special House Study Committee on Navigable Streams to study the issue and make recommendations to the legislature about future legislative proposals.
Specifically, ACA Georgia lead on several key grassroots efforts including:
- Organizing local partner organizations and testimony to the legislative committee
- Coordinating between Freedom to Float Coalition and the fishing lobby to find common ground
- Lead a summer Live Stream Series to increase awareness/engagement among outfitters and key municipal officials
- Augmented tools available to the coalition through administering additional Action Alerts to reach larger audiences
- Recruited experienced advocates in ACA’s national network to assist in research
This week, the committee released their final recommendation to the legislature and they have recommended against limiting access to public recreation on rivers via a legislated list of navigable streams. The coalition will continue to be engaged and vigilant, but changing the direction that the study committee thought they were headed marks the second time this year our grassroots advocacy has helped block legislation that would likely have curtailed access.
Nolichucky River (Tennessee/North Carolina)
In the wake of Hurricane Helene, railroad construction on the river in Tennessee and North Carolina drew concerns from paddlers who were concerned that the contractors were exceeding environmental compliance requirements. Local paddlers raised the alarm about increased potential for future flooding, environmental damage, and risks to the whitewater paddling industry that is a major economic driver for these rural Appalachian communities. American Whitewater was engaged to help with federal Action Alerts and even assembling support through American Rivers and Southern Environmental Law Center to file suit against the federal agencies responsible for oversight.
The ACA Southeast team was able to join forces, once again leveraging the power of a coalition, to deploy complementary Action Alerts that allowed paddlers to get the word out to key state officials in Tennessee and North Carolina. Within 36 hours of this initial outreach, the state of Tennessee set up a website for paddlers to communicate evidence of issues and key agencies began investigations. As a result of our collective efforts, a Notice of Violation was issued to the company by the State of Tennessee along with a Cease and Desist order co-signed by both the Wilmington and Nashville Districts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This situation will continue to merit investigation and oversight, but we also want to acknowledge that grassroots advocates are rarely successful in getting a Notice of Violation of this kind, much less getting it quickly enough to mitigate the harm being done! We will continue to support our local paddlers in their concerns about issues arising in the wake of Hurricane Helene along the Nolichucky as well as other rivers.
Takeaway for ACA Members
When a state or local issue arises of concern to the local paddling community, reach out to your ACA State Director and/or your ACA Regional Chair. They can help connect you with resources, tools and strategies to build a local coalition of stakeholders, empowered by nationwide resources to have the most impact. It is critically important for us to find ways for paddlers to have a voice on issues related to river access, river and coastal conservation, and paddlers rights. That only happens when we successfully rally the paddlers who are registered voters in the state with the issue in question. Our power is in our numbers!
Reminder that voting is currently open to vote for ACA State Directors until Dec 23! Vote for your ACA State Director
If you are a paddler with a passion for state and local advocacy and you would like to learn more about how you can volunteer with the ACA Regional Activity Council to help on these kinds of issues as part of the RAC State and Local Policy Committee, reach out to me, Bill Caruso at NJStateDirector@americancanoe.net