Thank you from Cossatot River State Parks

[Liz Caldwell]

Ha Ha Ha. I deleted the original post I had here, because it was pointed out to me that you wanted to know the access to the Tot, not to the ACC minutes!

The Tot access is at Deer Camp, I think.

[Gordon Kumpuris]

Sweeet!!

[DeBo]

Note: I tried to post the below response this morning but the MB crashed, or the WiFi burped. Even though some of the info has now been posted in other threads, I'll go ahead and put this up.

Gordo,

I think the new potential access was briefly mentioned in some other thread long ago. The State Park now owns the land at "Deer Camp Rapid" that was previously a private in-holding.

The gate is now open some of the time, but a final decision on making this an "all the time" public access point has not yet been made to our knowledge. I think it hinges on how much Maintenance will be required. If we can keep the place clean so that it doesn't become a required activity for the current Maintenance staff, then it will be more likely to stay open. If the place gets trashed up and existing staff has to work OT to keep it under control, then less likely to stay open.

For those of you not yet familiar with the Cossatot, this potential new access is a big deal, especially for those who would like to run the Falls in a Canoe or raft. It shortens the float out a little bit by eliminating some flatwater, and only cuts out two significant rapids - one that is frequently portaged and has broken a few ankles over the years, and a second one that has laid open more than one forehead.

I'm glad the board voted to support the Cossatot water quality study; one thing that keeps coming up in the shale-and-gas debate is the lack of "baseline" data. If there is no historical data, then when something bad happens in the watershed it is way too easy for those responsible to claim "it wasn't us!" or "you can't PROVE we did that!"

(and it certainly doesn't hurt that it earned us a gold star with the Cossatot Park rangers, either.)

[prophet]

thanks for the info, thats good news on the Tot study (and access point).

Re the baseline water data, sure would be nice if info was collected on all ERW streams to provide the baseline data mentioned. Hard to believe that isn't happening

[panicman]

From my understanding the new access will be at that old deer camp place on river left where they used to have purple painted rocks.