Why is the Chattooga an important precedent setting case?
Keeping Americans connected with our public lands and waters is vital to the long term protection of those natural resources. The Wilderness Act and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, among others, are intended to both protect special places and the public’s connection to those places. The USFS’s actions threaten that connection and violates these bedrock environmental laws. Arbitrarily granting unlimited access to large, artificially-increased, and higher-impact groups while totally banning smaller, lower-impact, nature-based groups is bad policy. This management would create competition for exclusive access to rivers among compatible groups where there is currently shared enjoyment. We are seeking to eliminate a bad precedent and restore nationally consistent river management to the Chattooga River, and in turn protect other rivers from similar bad management.
