Indian Slough Closing to Waterskiing?

B

bigwaveohs

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Joined
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14616
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Last night on the news there was a story about the possibility of Contra Costa County closing Indian Slough to waterskiing, wakeboarding, tubing & etc. Guess the folks in Discovery Bay are not too happY!
 
Have you ever been on Indian Slu on a busy weekend? It is a zoo! I think the county might be right on this one........
 
Seems that the anti-ban folks have a very good argument. In my comment above, I was thinking the ordinance would target all speeders, waterskiers, PWCers, wakeboarders, go fasts, small cabin cruisers. I think the whole Indian Slu should be a No Wake Zone. However, the area from Orwood to the junction with Indian Slu might be ok for no speed restrictions depending on the statistics.
 
Everyone, including all the local skiers, agree the area is dangerous certain times of the year. The sheriff, local anecdotes and statistics bare that out. Almost all arrests, accidents and fatalities are a result of excessive speed, PWC's and alcohol. Not one injury/fatality involved a skier and another boat. Summer weekends and holidays, it's nuts to put anyone in the water - I would never do it. What the board is doing, based on hearsay and the influence of a couple of people that don't represent the masses, is trying to invoke a 24/7/365 waterski ban. I live in DB and ski year-round. Except for those afternoon weekends and holiday, the Delta is virtually vacant. So why punish a group who are arguable the safest boaters on the Delta (look at the accident statistics)for the actions of the drunks, speeders and uneducated boated. We are all concerned with safety. The Board had a great idea but didn't engage anyone or any real staistic to base their proposal. That theme was driven home by the community at the special meeting last night. If nothing else, the Board was put on notice to take a step back and really look at the issue of safety and how to properly enhance it. They didn't take notice and move forward anyway despite the tremendous turnout in the face of this storm. All this proposal does is remove the speed bumps. Area folks are upset because there seems to be another agenda known only to the Board.
 
"Changing the lifestyle" arguments aren't very convincing. They should be arguing the statistics as stated in the "deltawaterskiban" website. That makes much more sense!
 
I agree that the statistics are a better argument. This is another attempt to legislate common sense. If Indian Slough is loaded with boats and traffic, a sane boater doesn't put a skier, boarder or inflatable out. If it empty, like 80% of the time, the area is perfectly safe for water sports. Idiots will find a way to do stupid stuff .... enough with the government interference, next they'll want to make the slough a 5 MPH zone because that would be safer too.
 
But the PWCers can still go flying by and the huge cruisers can throw their wakes at will, right?
 
quote:
Originally posted by Flutterby

But the PWCers can still go flying by and the huge cruisers can throw their wakes at will, right?

Click to expand...


And your point is?
 
My point is that these things are at least as much of a cause of accidents in the area as waterskiers and tubers! They haven't solved the problem, just selected a certain group to pick on. Fixing half a problem is not a solution.
 
Look for Victoria Cut to be packed even more than it is now causing more accidents there. The solution of course will be to ban it on Victoria Cut and eventually every other place in the Delta.

It's really too bad that the whole reason for this is so some politician can justify her place in office.
 
quote:
Originally posted by bftr

Everyone, including all the local skiers, agree the area is dangerous certain times of the year. The sheriff, local anecdotes and statistics bare that out. Almost all arrests, accidents and fatalities are a result of excessive speed, PWC's and alcohol. Not one injury/fatality involved a skier and another boat. Summer weekends and holidays, it's nuts to put anyone in the water - I would never do it. What the board is doing, based on hearsay and the influence of a couple of people that don't represent the masses, is trying to invoke a 24/7/365 waterski ban. I live in DB and ski year-round. Except for those afternoon weekends and holiday, the Delta is virtually vacant. So why punish a group who are arguable the safest boaters on the Delta (look at the accident statistics)for the actions of the drunks, speeders and uneducated boated. We are all concerned with safety. The Board had a great idea but didn't engage anyone or any real staistic to base their proposal. That theme was driven home by the community at the special meeting last night. If nothing else, the Board was put on notice to take a step back and really look at the issue of safety and how to properly enhance it. They didn't take notice and move forward anyway despite the tremendous turnout in the face of this storm. All this proposal does is remove the speed bumps. Area folks are upset because there seems to be another agenda known only to the Board.

Click to expand...
Based on your comments it might make sense to not allow waterskiing in the slough on weekends and holidays when it is the busiest.
 
I think the real problem is reckless and unsafe operation. The problem becomes more focused on the tow boats that have a lot of passengers in them causing what we call on the road distracted driving. Some captains do this just fine with a full crew onboard, however there are those who don't and there are a lot of them and they are the one's who I suspect have brought attention to the demographic being singled out.

This wasn’t a problem 10 years ago and with the sudden explosion and popularity of wake boarding and the abundance of available boats with 20 year financing any young adult can purchase one without any prior boating experience.

I hate to say it but boating is never going to be the same as it was 10 years ago and 20, 30, or 40 years ago. With the ever abundant amount of enthusiastic boaters growing we better face it that mandatory training and/or certification is just around the corner. Until then county supervisors will try to restrict when and where water sports may be played out which won’t work because the enthusiasts will just go do it somewhere else.

This almost sounds like the ban on skateboarding about 20 years ago. Now there are designated areas and kids still ride them around, nothing has really changed except that many cities and towns have built skate board parks and we will likely see designated areas for the wake boarders and skiers and that won’t be such a bad thing in my opinion

Gnarley
 
What I don't like is singling out waterskiers/wakeboards/tubers when all vessels going through that area contribute to the problem. I've gone through there when the area was so congested I was very concerned while going idle speed. And the waterskiers and PWCers where trying to jump big boat wakes!
 
Flutter, I think we all know there is a law on the books to prevent jumping wakes close to boats, the problem is lack of education and enforcement of existing laws. While you won't need to worry so much now on Indian slough they will just go do it somewhere else. Since Indian slough is a major artery water sports in that area may not be such a good thing when it tends to be a free-for-all. Many lakes have designated ski and wakeboard areas, with such high popularity maybe it's time to designate some areas in the delta also? We still won't be able to control the PWC's that swarm large wake's like something from Mad Max, I like to call them lake Lice in comparing them to the swarms that seem to follow you in those area's.
 
LOL Lake Lice----I like that one! I call them mosquitoes 'cause they buzz around all the time.

Your idea may have merit.
 
I hope to God that we don't ever get to the point of designating areas of navigable water for certain types of activities. Its one thing on lakes, but navigable water is still one of our frontiers that demands personal judgment and responsibility. It would be a shame to see it cluttered with yet more governmental restrictions. Where is the anti government crusader BillD when I need him.
 
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