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Stalemate for Mono Lake Boat Tours |
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Friday, 05 June 2009 |
Tom Crowe and State Park Service go round and round in a circle game
By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
 Mammoth Times Photos/Catherine Billey. Tom Crowe of Mono Lake Boat Tours describes the life cycles of the Lake for visitors about to embark on one of his two-hour tours.
He has been operating his interpretive tours on a use permit that expired four years ago.
Crowe’s rigid-hull, inflatable motorized tour boat on Mono Lake has carried what he estimates to be 600 boatloads of people – without incident since 2003. His is the third tour boat service to be in operation there since 1889.
The California State Parks Systems (CSPS), the state agency that oversees concessions on Mono Lake, says that Tioga Lodge owner Gloria Ma, who granted Crowe access to her property and to build a dock, refuses the CSPS access to her property. Crowe says that the CSPS has presented burdensome contractual terms and cancelled numerous meetings. Jeff Hansen, a third generation Mono Lake resident who supports Crowe’s business, says that the CSPS is simply opposed to motorized boating on the lake.
“There’s no smoke and mirrors here. We began negotiations with Mr. Crowe in March and April,” asserted Pam Armas, Sierra District Superintendent of CSPS. “And Mr. Crowe, through Senator Cox’s office, abruptly stated that he no longer wished to do business with State Parks.”
That’s a misunderstanding, according to Crowe. While he initially balked at signing the 68-page contract presented to him in March – it was not realistically geared toward the particulars of his Mono Lake boating business, he said – he is eager to renew stalled contract negotiations.
Use permit
expired four years ago
Armas explained that Crowe had been on a use permit for four years, but state law requires that he have a concessionaire contract.
“We’re contemplating whether this is in the best interest for the state parks,” Armas said. “[Crowe] was sent a draft of that [contract] and did not care for some of the provisions in it, thus we were going to negotiate and talk to him about it,” she said.
“There’s all kinds of permitting he has to do. Mono Lake is a natural reserve, so it’s the highest level of protection under state park regulations,” she concluded. “So, we were very specific on what he could and couldn’t do.”
Onerous contract
for valuable service?
Based on what they’ve heard and read, Ma and Mono County Supervisor Bill Reid believe it’s all over for Crowe’s tours.
“We received a letter,” Reid said in a phone interview, “indicating that Tom had changed his mind and didn’t want a concessionaire agreement down there. The letter was to Tom to remove all his equipment,” Reid said. “The loss of him on the lake is a big problem. I think he got short-changed. He is an expert on that lake.”
Reid argued that the CSPS was imposing onerous terms and being uncooperative with Crowe.
“It was a simple contract one time, and now it’s morphed into something humongous,” Reid stated. “I haven’t seen the contract, but from what I’m told on both sides, it’s become too bureaucratic. We should be trying to work with people, not against them.”
Everyone “to a person” on the Mono County Board of Supervisors is disappointed “in the way this thing has gone,” Reid said.
“It’s a shame at this point in time, especially in our economy, that the state is shutting down a small businessman,” Reid said.
Unfortunately, Crowe’s relationship with the CSPS was rocky from the start, Armas said, beginning with a CSPS lawsuit in 2003 because Crowe initially refused the three-year use permit later granted by the state.
But Ma has never had a problem working with Crowe. “That’s why I feel very comfortable with him,” she said. “I don’t understand why all of a sudden the safety issue has come up with state parks, because it wasn’t there before.”
Issue over state
access to private dock
The sticking point in the negotiations, according to Armas, is that Crowe wants to launch in an area that the CSPS has not been granted direct access to: the dock owned by Ma.
However, Ma said she would grant the CSPS access to her property any time it is needed for search and rescue efforts. Otherwise, she desires control over her property.
“She can have control over her property, but then Mr. Crowe can’t launch a waterborne vessel that the state can’t have access to and that we’re totally, 100 percent responsible for,” Armas said.
“We needed direct access so that we could launch from that site. We can’t have a waterborne concession and not have immediate access to it. We put our visitors at risk when we do that.”
As an alternative, Armas said the CSPS offered the old marina near the mouth of Lee Vining Creek for Crowe’s use. She said CSPS has discussed building a new dock there in place of the old LADWP one. “It would have been an ideal spot for him to launch from,” she asserted.
Crowe is skeptical of this idea. In his opinion, CSPS has never upgraded the old DWP dock in the past and is seeking to take over his dock near Tioga Lodge to launch their own boats.
“And that’s the real reason they want access to Ma’s property,” he said.
“They went about it in a very underhanded way, which was basically using my tour business as extortion to get what they want,” Crowe said. “The reason they want unlimited access is to drive their vehicles down to the dock.”
Hansen agreed, adding that the state doesn’t have “a pot to piss in” to build a new dock now.
“He’s providing something that they are not able to do,” Hansen said. “A very wonderful service for everyone who wants to view the lake, and the flora and fauna and the wildlife. It’s a service that is not provided by anyone else, including the State Parks or forest service.”
Motorized boating
the real sticking point?
Furthermore, Hansen said, the CSPS has a “vendetta” against motorized boating on the lake, in collusion with the Mono Lake Committee (MLC).
“I feel it’s definitely a vendetta against motorized boating on Mono Lake, and it’s being vetted through the State Parks law enforcement. They’re using a lot of rules and regulations that really are not applicable because we have historical uses that were granted by the original Tufa Reserve Act,” he said.
There’s no vendetta or collusion, said MLC Executive Director Geoffrey McQuilkin. “We’ve been referring business to Tom for over five years now. We have his brochures in our store.”
But programs run on the lake must be consistent with rules governing the lake’s protection, he added.
“We did some philosophical soul-searching about whether it was appropriate to have a motorized program out there or not,” McQuilkin said. “And we really came down on the side that if it’s a natural history program, the things that Mono Lake is known for and protected for, it doesn’t really matter if there’s a motor hanging off the back of the boat.”
McQuilkin expressed surprise and disappointment that Crowe included statements on his Web site about being “forced out by the State Parks System and the Mono Lake Committee.”
“There’s some paperwork that’s a hassle, but we do that, too,” McQuilkin said. “There’s nostalgia for an era when we could all do things and everything would be fine, but there’s a lot of people out there who want to do things and someone has to be in charge.”
In the MLC newsletter, McQuilkin wrote that Crowe’s withdrawal from the concession “opens the motorized tour concession to potential new operators who have enthusiasm for delivering public programs in a manner that protects Mono Lake for decades to come.”
Crowe’s issue isn’t necessarily one of enthusiasm, but rather, as Reid suggested, that the state has imposed contractual terms that are too onerous for small business people. And, as Hansen stated, that the state isn’t readily sanctioning historical uses of the lake, such as motorized boating.
“They have no knowledge of history, they don’t want it documented, and they don’t want to have a meeting to discuss it,” Hansen argued. “If you’ve only been here two years, you don’t know what’s happened 20 years ago.”
Hansen continues to push for a meeting. Within the past week, he spoke with the deputy district attorney and the Mono County Sheriff. He said they are sympathetic to the stalemate and hope to foster a meeting with the CSPS.
“The people that are being messed with are the very people who have cared for and loved Mono Lake for generations and do nothing to harm the resource,” Hansen said.
Armas conceded that Crowe offers a valuable service. “His success means our success,” she said. “But he has to follow the provisions of a contract, and he has to follow state park rules and regulations in order to be a concessionaire with us.”
Armas admitted that the CSPS allowed Crowe a special use permit “for longer than we should have.”
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 11 June 2009 )
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