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surfer2001
09-09-2004, 07:06 AM
River presents parties, peril
Thousands flock to Lake Havasu for 'Party Gras.' But fatal boat crash Monday reminds of the dangers.
PARTY CITY: Party-goers dance amid sprays of water Sept. 2 near Parker, Ariz. Some in the area say revelers who flock to Lake Havasu create dangers by drinking and boating.
KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
DEATH ON THE WATER
The Colorado River is one of the deadliest boating corridors in the nation, a Register analysis found. From 1995 to 2003, 136 recreational boaters died on the river, compared with 101 in Pacific Ocean coastal waters and 75 on the Mississippi River.
Nationally, the number of boating- under-the-influence arrests stemming from accidents quadrupled from 66 in 1995 to 270 in 2003.
- Natalya Shulyakovskaya
The Register
By GWENDOLYN DRISCOLL
The Orange County Register
NEEDLES – "I don't want to offend your sensibilities," said Mike Fassari, a sergeant in the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, as he plucked a white binder filled with X-rated photographs from his bookshelf and laid it on his desk. "But this ought to give an idea of the scale of the problem."
The graphic images might make even Hugh Hefner blush. Young adults - mostly women - in various positions and states of undress fill the pages, photographed by an adult-video company along an emerald stretch of the Colorado River.
The pictures were taken of rowdy and often drunken revelers who are drawn to this winding, green river that divides Arizona and California.
According to the Sheriff's Department, on major holiday weekends such as Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, up to 20,000 small boats - most of them from Southern California - are launched from about 170 ramps into Lake Havasu, a curving 45-mile reservoir lodged between the Parker and Davis dams.
Many come to relax with their families, to fish, and to enjoy the spectacular sunsets over the dusky pink mountains of the Mojave Desert. But thousands also come to engage in "Party Gras" - a bumper-to-bow traffic jam of small boats that crowd the river's narrow channels and shallow sandbars, in which liberal quantities of alcohol help to shed inhibitions as well as clothing.
The "floating frat party," as Lake Havasu City, Ariz., resident Kathi Johnson terms it, is an important economic boost to the arid desert town, accounting for 70 percent of sales in Johnson's waterfront photo and toy store alone.
But the combination of alcohol and "hot boaters" - the 25- to 40-foot high-speed performance boats that "Party Gras" revelers prefer - brings danger as well.
On Monday, two people were killed when a 1993 Renegade jet boat crashed into the concrete pylon of an old iron railroad bridge that spans Topock Gorge, a jutting spur of land that forces the Colorado River into an abrupt curve. Two other passengers remain unaccounted for, and the boat's pilot, Scott Eickhoff, 31, of Anaheim Hills was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and felony boating under the influence.
That alcohol might have been a contributing factor in yet another in a string of boating deaths that have occurred on the lake dismayed, but did not surprise, residents of Lake Havasu City. The town hosted thousands of boaters last weekend in its Bridgewater Channel, a narrow strip of water sandwiched between an island and Arizona's mainland shore.
"The problem is that the weekend and especially the holiday weekends throughout the summer have been an out-of-control environment," said Lake Havasu City Vice Mayor Don Clark. "There's drinking, there's public nudity, there's violence. The police are just quite honestly outnumbered. It's gotten to the point where the locals won't go down there."
Alcohol - compounded with poor boating skills - is the No.1 contributing factor in boating accidents on the lake, according to San Bernardino County sheriff's officials.
"It's chaotic," said Fassari, who directs marine policing operations out of the department's Needlessubstation. "The majority of people on the water have no idea what the rules are. They've never taken a boating safety class. They'll spend $100,000 on a boat, but they won't pay $69 for life jackets or a fire extinguisher."
Sheriff's officials report nine "major injury" crashes in 2004, including at least four fatalities, and three more crash deaths in 2003 on the side of the river policed by San Bernardino County. According to Fassari, at least 40 crashes in the past year involved significant property damage.
Efforts to police the lake are challenged by its physical and political topography. Two counties - San Bernardino in California and Mohave in Arizona - split jurisdiction of the river in the Lake Havasu area. Water adjacent to nearby wildlife preserves falls under the domain of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as well as state fish and game departments. The river also is monitored by the California Department of Boating and Waterways and the Arizona State Parks Department, among others.
"When an accident happens on the lake, it can be a puzzle to see who has jurisdictional authority," said Charlie Cassens, a spokesman for City Hall in Lake Havasu City.
Boaters can use differing state laws to their advantage. Arizona has a "zero tolerance" policy toward public nudity, whereas nude sunbathing is permitted in certain cases in California. On Lake Havasu, an in-the-buff sunbather need float only a few feet across the river to traverse the invisible jurisdictional line that separates the two states and their differing policies.
Even where laws exist, some party-goers find ways to subvert them. Lake Havasu City officials report a marked increase in the purchase and use of pasties by women eager to get around state laws prohibiting nudity, according to Cassens.
The confusion over jurisdictional authority has resulted in police departments attempting to "solve" the "Party Gras" problem at other departments' expense.
Hundreds of boats once flocked to CopperCanyon, a narrow cove surrounded by high walls of red and orange rock. Boats were jammed so tightly together that, according to Fassari, it was possible to walk from one side of the cove to the other without setting foot in the water. Beer and other alcohol flowed, loud music pumped, and an adult- video company even imported porn actors and encouraged volunteers to sign release forms and strip.
The party ended in 1999 when the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department closed off the cove, reopening it only after a "safety lane" was cleared to allow access by police boats.
In 2000, boaters moved to a large sandbar north of Lake Havasu City - until the Mohave County Sheriff's Department shut it down during the major holiday weekends.
In the same year, attempts to regroup at Steamboat Cove to the south of the city were similarly thwarted. The party moved again, this time to the doorstep of Lake Havasu City - the Bridgewater Channel - and its Police Department.
"Bridgewater Channel had always been a party spot, but it really increased when those other places shut down," said Cassens, who subsequently noted an increase in previously unseen "extreme types of behavior."
In response, a temporary courtroom is installed inside the city jail during holiday weekends to expedite the punishment of offenders who might otherwise "go back home to California and we'd never see them again," Cassens said.
Some city officials complain that the boaters present a menace - not just to public decency but to safety. A study conducted by the city in 2003 found high levels of carbon monoxide in the air during peak hours on holiday weekends as a result of the hundreds of exhaust-spewing boats that clog the narrow passage.
Carbon monoxide might have contributed to the drowning death of a Huntington Beach man on Memorial Day 2003, Cassens said.
"It's one more hazard that these crowds present," he said.
Not everyone considers the noise and disruption of "Party Gras" a concern.
"We have the lake 365 days a year," said Nick Yolla, a Lake Havasu City resident who took a break Tuesday from his home-building company to go for a cruise on his pontoon boat, "Holy Water."
"If we have to stay away for a couple weekends a year, how tough can that be?"
Johnson, a former Laguna Hills resident who moved to Lake Havasu City in 1989 and who now runs a photo store that specializes in aerial photographs of the clusters of party boats that come each holiday weekend, said the rowdiest boaters represent just a small percentage of the thousands of people who come to enjoy the lake.
"We don't resent the tourists," she said. "We were tourists once ourselves."

Havasu_Dreamin
09-09-2004, 07:15 AM
According to the Sheriff's Department, on major holiday weekends such as Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, up to 20,000 small boats - most of them from Southern California - are launched from about 170 ramps into Lake Havasu, a curving 45-mile reservoir lodged between the Parker and Davis dams.
170 launch ramps between Davis and Parker dams?

ratso
09-09-2004, 07:16 AM
...nudity at Lake Havasu??? :D

Sleek-Jet
09-09-2004, 07:17 AM
But the combination of alcohol and "hot boaters" - the 25- to 40-foot high-speed performance boats that "Party Gras" revelers prefer - brings danger as well.
My boat isn't big enough to qualify I guess... :hammerhea
I wonder where our buddy Steve-o was at during all this?? :D

Tom Slick
09-09-2004, 07:43 AM
170 launch ramps between Davis and Parker dams?
Where do they get their facts from anway? 170 launch ramps between Parker dam and Davis Dam which is a 45 mile stretch???? These writters are such idiots...try doubling the mileage first of all and get the number of public ramps straight. I hate the press! :mad:

Danhercules
09-09-2004, 08:00 AM
"are launched from about 170 ramps into Lake Havasu, a curving 45-mile reservoir lodged between the Parker and Davis dams."
Never said public or priviate. There might be 170 if you include all the priviate ramps at peoples houses. It is misleading though. Just be smarter than the paper.
I think thats close, Havasu is about 45 miles long.

RiverToysJas
09-09-2004, 09:01 AM
170 launch ramps between Davis and Parker dams?
Could be. I bet the number adds up quick when you consider MANY residential lots north of Needles bridge have their own ramp.
This kind of press is brought on by the stupid things that happen there though. We need to all do our part to not draw this kind of unwanted attention. Every preventable accident is another mark adgainst us from the vocal people who don't understand what we're doing or why we're doing it.
RTJas

FastTimmy
09-09-2004, 09:14 AM
[QUOTE=surfer2001]
But the combination of alcohol and "hot boaters" - the 25- to 40-foot high-speed performance boats that "Party Gras" revelers prefer - brings danger as well.
On Monday, two people were killed when a 1993 Renegade jet boat crashed into the concrete pylon of an old iron railroad bridge that spans Topock Gorge, "[/QUOTE
I like these quotes, The writer pegs us "25'-40' hot boaters" for the problem and then goes on to talk about a jet boat crash!! We all know those guys can't drive :D ...
Timmy

surfer2001
09-09-2004, 12:05 PM
The thing is with more & more bad press, what's next? Is the sandbar turning into 04 version of Sodom & Gamora. Everybody know what happened there.