Falls Whitewater Park News

Traveling Paddlers=Local Opportunities

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 16:23:06 -0500

A recent post by the “Rivers and Trails Journal” exemplifies the local benefits of a reliable recreational resource: In this example, the Smith River in south central Virginia. North Carolina paddlers seek out and take advantage of these resources and bring their travel dollars with them. See the story here: http://rivers-trails.blogspot.com/2008/12/thanks-for-your-help.html

Training benefits the entire community

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:31:06 -0500

On October 17, an eastern NC firefighter who had previously received extensive swiftwater rescue training through the Raleigh-based Carolina Canoe Club (CCC) received a call-in page from his fire unit. He relays his story as:

“At 10 PM my fire pager rang: Single vehicle accident, partly submerged, victim entrapped. The incident was about 10 miles from our house. By the time I arrived, the vehicle was stabilized by tying off to a tree. Two firemen were in the water initiating the rescue . I donned my swiftwater rescue gear and rigged myself for a tethered rescue. We extricated the victim by removing the rest of the windshield and cutting off the roof. I was able to perform some of the cutting on tether on the downstream side of the vehicle. I made sure no one was in the water on the upstream side. We then started searching for a possible second victim. Still on tether, I began wading downstream, using my feet as my eyes, searching for a body. About this time it hit me. All the CCC and Rescue training was certainly worthwhile. There was no 2nd victim, But we had definitely saved a man’s life. Other members of the station set up a landing zone for the evacuation helicopter and the patient was air lifted to [hospital]. where he is now recovering. Just wanted to share this with you.”

This anecdote is testimony for the need and value of sites and programs where appropriate water-based training benefits the community at-large. Swift water related emergencies, are not limited to mountainous areas and the need for training for these emergencies exists all across our state.

Meeting with City

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:30:43 -0500

The Falls Whitewater Park Committee met with a representative of the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Dept., Stewart Engineering and McLaughlin Whitewater to discuss the current status of the project and possible design scenarios the committee members expressed their continued interest in developing a park facility that would provide value to the widest possible range of paddlers, students and other community interests including safety and swiftwater rescue training. The City must now contact the US Army Corps of Engineers district office in Wilmington, NC to determine what types of project features would be acceptable in relation to Falls Dam before the Committee and the City can continue to fine-tune design plans. At that point, the City hopes to convene a stakeholders group for input on the project.

If there’s water....

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:36:02 -0400

Tropical storm Hanna brought lots of rain to the triangle and subsequently a release from Falls dam. At around 900 CFS, local kayakers enjoyed having the water. The Carolina Canoe Club email list was abuzz about the flow they’d all been looking forward to. Raleigh’s News and Observer presented several pictorials and articles (here and here) about whitewater kayaking, highlighting the interest that this popular sport holds for the triangle area

Triangle Sports Social Club supports the project

Thu, 1 May 2008 16:44:59 -0400

To: City of Raleigh

From: Triangle Sports Social Club

TRI SPORTS is the place where over 12,000 of the Triangle's professionals come for coed sports leagues, adventure trips, social events, theme parties, philanthropy events, extreme sports & weekend getaways. Our members would be thrilled to have a unique venue like the Falls Whitewater Park in the Triangle area.

We think it would provide numerous recreational opportunities for our group and many other groups in the region. Specifically, a long course with a minimum course length of 900 ft with multiple river features would allow for our club members to learn the sport of paddling. We understand this type of venue would provide a safe facility for swiftwater rescue training courses, local scout troops, clubs, and City of Raleigh's own outdoor programs as well. Our members are always looking for new adventures and this one would certainly keep us closer to home. With a competition-style course we could even see the opportunity for our own "races".

With the correct design, this park would also attract the general public to enjoy the park, hiking and picnicking along the river. And in turn they may be drawn into paddling and other outdoor activities. It sounds like a win-win for everyone involved.

Thank you for consideration of this letter.

Danny Lefebvre
President/CSO
Triangle Sports Social Club. LLC
P.0. Box 80271 Raleigh NC 27623

http://www.meetandcompete.com

Where Triangle professionals come to Meet & Compete!

Raleigh Ski and Outing Club supports the project

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:24:18 -0400

April 29, 2008
To: City of Raleigh
From: Raleigh Ski and Outing Club, Inc.

RSOC is the place where the triangle's professionals come for recreation, adventure trips, social events, theme parties, philanthropy events, extreme sports & weekend getaways. Our members would be thrilled to have a unique venue like the Falls Whitewater Park in the Triangle area.

We think it would provide numerous recreational opportunities for our group and many other groups in the region. Specifically, a long course with a minimum course length of 900 ft with multiple river features would allow for our club members to learn the sport of paddling. We understand this type of venue would provide a safe facility for swiftwater rescue training courses, local scout troops, clubs, and City of Raleigh’s own outdoor programs as well. Our members are always looking for new adventures and this one would certainly keep us closer to home. With a competition-style course we could even see the opportunity for our own “races”.

With the correct design, this park would also attract the general public to enjoy the park, hiking and picnicking along the river. And in turn they may be drawn into paddling and other outdoor activities. It sounds like a win-win for everyone involved.

Thank you for consideration of this letter.

Paul Santrock, President

Raleigh Ski and Outing Club, Inc.

South Orange Rescue Squad supports the project

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:09:11 -0400

To the City of Raleigh:

I am writing on behalf of South Orange Rescue Squad and its group of Rescue 3 International
Swiftwater Rescue Instructors to express support of the creation of the Falls Whitewater Park.

For more than fifteen years, South Orange Rescue Squad (SORS) has taught Swiftwater
Rescue Technician classes to emergency responders throughout central North Carolina. Class
attendees have come from agencies serving the citizens of Burlington, Cary, Chapel Hill,
Carrboro, Durham, Greensboro, and Raleigh as well as numerous other communities in
Alamance, Chatham, Guilford, Orange, and Wake Counties – to name just a few. SORS
instructors have also taught students from Virginia, Oregon, Maine, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The primary objectives of the swiftwater rescue technician program are to teach the students
personal safety as well as how to operate as a team in moving water under various conditions to
affect the rescue of someone in danger. To achieve the most success, instructors must place
the students in “big water” while ensuring a safe environment. Construction of a multi-rapid
course where water levels and flows can be maintained at a reliable level would provide a
strong environment for the students to build experience operating as a team in situations similar
to those they would be called on to perform rescues in. Construction of a single rapid could
have the potential to build over confident rescuers that would excel at operating in that particular
rapid but not have the experience and benefits of having trained on multiple different rapids with
varying hydrology, composition, and features.

Most recently everyone in North Carolina has become familiar with the effects of drought. Low
river levels make it extremely difficult to maintain water rescue proficiency for our stateʼs
emergency responders. Construction of a long course that channels available water to
efficiently create multiple rapids like the one proposed by the Falls Whitewater Park Committee
would provide a nearly year-round training site.

Iʼm ecstatic about the proposal for the Falls Whitewater Park and the support thus far and am
looking forward to training and teaching at the Park once complete.

Sincerely,

Matthew Mauzy
Chief, South Orange Rescue Squad
Independent Instructor, Rescue 3 International

Olympic Paddling Coach supports the project

Sun, 6 Apr 2008 11:46:36 -0400

William T. Endicott
6537 Broad Street
Bethesda, MD 20816

April 6, 2008

To the city of Raleigh, North Carolina:

I am writing in support of creating a full-length, multiple feature slalom course on the Neuse River.

I have been associated with whitewater canoeing and kayaking for 38 years now, first as a athlete, then as coach of the US team that won gold and bronze medals at the Barcelona Olympics, and as manager of the same team when it won a silver at Athens. I was also the NBC TV Color Commentator for the canoeing and kayaking events at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

I also helped design the venue for the Atlanta Games, which included testifying before Congress to get money for it, and I was the first President of the World Cup in our sport, in which position I had a chance to scrutinize most of the top venues in the world as to their suitability for hosting big slalom events.

And most recently I have been a consultant to the Chinese Canoeing Association to help them design the venue for the Beijing Olympics.

Because of all these experiences, I believe that the development of the Falls Whitewater Park offers the Raleigh area a great opportunity. With the right design, this park would offer an alternative form of recreation not currently found in the region. If done right it would draw in people who want to learn the sport, provide a great training ground for paddlers, and be a venue for US National Championships, World Cup races, and possibly even a World Championships. These and other events would attract both youth and adults and bring money into the local economy as happened with the course created for the Atlanta Olympics on the Ocoee River, for example.

This whitewater park would not only serve paddlers but would draw the general public to picnic, walk in the park and dangle their feet in the river. In that regard, it could be like the course in Augsburg, Germany, that was built for the 1972 Olympics and has since become a great family destination.

The course could also give people a reason to care about and want to protect the Neuse River. I saw this happen with the course created in South Bend, Indiana, for example.

But how to “do it right?” I think there is great danger in just having a short, one-rapid course, because people will get tired of that pretty quickly, and it won’t be the hook you really need to draw people and money to it. A single rapid just would not provide the same on-going opportunity for recreation and safety training as a course with multiple rapids would.

So, I would say that if you are going to do this, you want to create the kind of course that will cause a real “buzz’ in the whitewater community and get prominent members of that community to endorse it. And I think a longer course with more features is what that will take.

I can’t tell you enough how much my association with this sport has enriched my life. It’s been the ride of a lifetime, and I think it could be for people in Raleigh, too. Besides taking me to the Olympics five times, it’s taken me to 68 countries and brought people from many of those countries here to events in the US, thus helping me to make friends all over the world.

To this day, for example, I still hear from people in Russia who enjoyed the “home stay” program we put together to house and feed athletes coming to World Cup events in the Mid West in the 1980s. And just this past summer we did something similar for racers from Iran competing on the new course on top of Wisp Mountain in western Maryland.

So, for all these reasons I hope you will give every possible consideration to supporting the efforts of the Falls Whitewater Park Citizen’s Committee to build a really top whitewater course in Raleigh.

Sincerely,

Bill Endicott

Carolina Canoe Club supports the project

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

TO: The City of Raleigh

SUBJECT: Neuse River Whitewater Improvements

The Carolina Canoe Club (CCC) is a North Carolina- based paddling organization, with over
1000 members throughout the country. The CCC strives to carry out the objectives set forth by
its founders, including the teaching and upholding of the highest standards of river safety, skill,
and environmental ethics.

The CCC Board of Directors, on behalf of the Club's membership, supports the present initiative to
develop a portion of the Neuse River in the area adjacent to and below the existing Falls of the
Neuse Road bridge into a whitewater park. We refer specifically to the document titled
'Conceptual Plan and Cost Estimate - Neuse River Whitewater Improvements' (prepared by
Recreation Engineering and Planning - May, 2003). This document includes a number of features
we feel that any facility of this kind should incorporate, including in-river and adjacent area
enhancements intended to make the Park an attractive destination for paddlers as well as for
residents of the surrounding communities. A facility such as the one proposed would allow for
multiple uses of the river and adjacent banks including paddling and paddling instruction, swift-
water rescue training, attractive 'green' space for residents and a way to attract new adherents to
the paddling sports.

We feel that if the Park is designed utilizing at least the concepts outlined in the May 2003
planning document cited above, the City of Raleigh would have a resource that would be useable
during low to moderate flows, would be long enough to allow for slalom and other organized
whitewater events to be held, and could be used for educating those new to paddlesports and
other visitors to the Park.

We look forward to development of this Park and anticipate that it will prove to be a great benefit
to paddlers and non-paddlers alike, and an asset to the City of Raleigh.

Thank you for your consideration.

John Zadrozny
President - Carolina Canoe Club

American Whitewater supports the project

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:31:53 -0400

American Whitewater provided us this letter of support on March 20, 2008:

American Whitewater is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore our nation’s whitewater resources while enhancing opportunities to enjoy them safely. We have approximately 6,700 members, a portion of which live and/or recreate in the Raleigh, NC area. In addition to our direct members we have over 100 affiliate paddling clubs. Our members are generally conservation-oriented non-commercial whitewater paddlers. Our organizational focus is river stewardship.

We were asked to review the Conceptual Plan for the Neuse River Whitewater Enhancements. Upon request, we review river parks that include in-channel recreational enhancements in context of our policy on such parks: http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Wiki/stewardship:whitewater_parks

Based on our review of the project plans, we support this project. We anticipate no significant social or ecological impacts from completion of this project. We anticipate that the project will encourage healthy outdoor recreation, and benefit a broad cross section of the regional population. The social and physical setting for the Park and its associated river modifications is highly appropriate. We feel that this Park would be a great addition to your community, and may benefit the river as well.

Thank you for considering this letter of support.

Kevin Colburn,

National Stewardship Director

American Whitewater