It’s Not Right to Close the River’s Access Point

Sunday May 10, 2015 Monte Rio CA.

An appalling sign

I decided to kayak Monte Rio today so drove on down to launch my boat at the public boat ramp. As I was putting my boat in the water I saw this new orange sign off to the right, which didn’t set well with me for the rest of the day.

Here I am at the boat ramp putting my boat in the water and you can see the offensive sign on the right.

Just after I put my boat in the water, I saw something splashing by the shore so went over to see what it was. It turned out to be a male robin taking a bath.

That darn sign

I continued on down the river thinking about that darn sign.

There was some movement in the brush and this pair of wood ducks popped out. They were feeding on all the dead Mayfly’s which were floating around dead on top of the water.

Stopped and talked with Andrew

I heard someone say, hey Bob. When I looked over, it was Andrew with his big dog, so I went over and we shot the bull for a bit. I mentioned the orange sign and he said that’s not right, no one will be able to use the boat ramp for two days.

We had a long bull session and then I continued down to the Villa Grande hole where this green heron was fishing on the shoreline.

I hung around Villa Grande

I decided the Villa Grande hole was as far as I’d paddle down today, so sat around the area for about an hour watching things. I noticed these two cormorants up on this dead tree with holes in it.

Over by the in the bushes I could see these two mallard ducks feeding on the Mayfly’s in the water.

While I was sitting there, that darn sign was bothering me. Eventually, I started back up the river towards Monte Rio.

A couple bucks in the water

Up ahead I could see two deer feeding along the water’s edge. They turned out to be two bucks with new horns.

Just past them, another green heron was fishing and doing pretty good, catching a bunch of real small fish, about an inch long.

I stopped and watched in this spot just below Monte Rio for a bit, before moving on.

Time of year for the ducky’s

This female merganser duck was resting on the gravel with her new little ducky’s.

Here I’m approaching the Monte Rio boat ramp and bridge.

I decided to paddle up by the bridge and this female mallard duck almost ran me over with her new family.

From there, I headed to the boat ramp.

The offensive sign said

This sign was still bothering me.

It appears someone is closing the boat ramp for two days for a special event. The special event is a bicycle event that people come from all over the world to attend.

Now, I don’t mind sharing my area with other people, but when a special event pushes out the locals, I’m not for that.

Worse than that

Worse than that, these people are illegally closing a federally controlled waterway. River’s are considered highways and are protected by federal laws that are supposed to keep these highways open and protected for people to use without being impeded by such things as this.

Closing the boat ramp is sorta like closing a freeway on and off ramp that leads into a town. It’s against the law to do that and no one does that, but then they think they can do that to the river and not consider the people’s rights to use the river as a highway.

Gone too far

It’s bad enough that the cyclists take over the road for this special event but taking over the river too is going too far.

There are very few public access points on the lower Russian River, so closing even one of them makes things very bad. And for some reason, they are closing it for two days, not just the one day for the bike ride.

Now, I’m willing to share the road with bikes, but closing river access is not sharing.

I’ve always said Monte Rio has the most community orientated river access point on the entire river and now this? Locals are being pushed out which is not right, especially for a special event, by people from another area.

National Organization of Rivers web site

There is a web site called NOR for National Organization for Rivers that explains that Federal laws provide easements for the public on all rivers in the US. It basically states that property owned along a river or creek waterway has easements along it for the pubic to access and use said waterways and must not be blocked.

http://www.nationalrivers.org/welcome.htm

This kind of thing particularly bothers me as each year more special events are being added and they are starting to impede the life of the local people without much consideration on the organizer’s part for the local people.

Went on home for the day

I took my boat out and went on home for the day. I puttered around the yard and took it easy, after all,  it’s Sunday.