No new laws have been enacted, but starting next summer, businesses on certain Gunflint Trail lakes will need to start making sure their boat operators have merchant mariner credentials that satisfy federal regulations.
Coast Guard Commander Mike Lebsack, captain of the Duluth port and officer in charge of marine inspections, has met with resort owners, outfitters, and guides in Ely and on the Gunflint Trail to let them know that the Coast Guard will be checking credentials.
Regulations requiring credentialing for boat operators who transport passengers have been in place since the 1993 Passenger Vessel Safety Act, said Lebsack. “Nothing has changed,” he said.
County Commissioner Jim Johnson, whose district includes the Gunflint Trail, attended a meeting with Lebsack and local businesspeople. “Thepeople most affected by the enforcement action,” Johnson said via email, “are the Proms at Voyageur’s Outfitters on Sag, Deb Mark on Seagull, the Arendts on Tuscarora, and the fishing guides that work out of Gunflint Lodge and the fish camp on Seagull [Seagull Creek Fishing Camp] and the outfitters at Trail’s End [Seagull Canoe Outfitters].”
Deadly accidents
Why are old laws just starting to be enforced now? Both Commander Lebsack and Gunflint Trail guide Jon Schei referred to an accident on Lake Texoma, a large reservoir on the Texas-Louisiana border, this last spring that resulted in the death of a passenger who had paid for the charter services of an unlicensed captain. Schei said he talked to a long-time Lake Texoma guide who said a lot of people – both experienced and inexperienced – try to make money as guides there. In this case, a guide took passengers out into sixfoot waves the day of the accident.
The training and licensing that Coast Guard personnel will now be checking border lake captains for is the same training and licensing Lake Superior charter captains have routinely received. The move to more stringently enforce regulations is for the purpose of “enhancing the safety of operators and vessels,” Commander Lebsack said.
Numerous fatal accidents involving paying passengers and unlicensed guides have happened through the years on “federally navigable waters,” but the Lake Texoma accident seems to be the final straw for the Coast Guard.
Enforcement
Federally navigable waters are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Coast Guard and are not necessarily on the nation’s borders. According to Lebsack, they are border waters and their tributaries on which commercial trade either between states or between the U.S. and other countries has taken place, takes place currently, or is expected to take place in the future.
Boat operators can expect to see some Coast Guard officers near the Canadian border next summer. “Most visibility will be shore side,” Lebsack said. He said no discussion has taken place regarding using motorized transportation in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, but he did not anticipate any motor use there. Coast Guard resources are limited, Lebsack said, with the Coast Guard in charge of 1,700 miles of federally navigable waterways in northern Minnesota. “We can’t be all places at all times,” he said.
In addition to checking boat operators, vessels that carry seven or more passengers for hire will be inspected. No licensing is required for families boating together or groups operating boats recreationally.
It’s great to be able to work with the majority of people who want to do the right thing and try to ensure the safety of passengers, Commander Lebsack said.
A guide speaks
The issue of credentialing came up 10 years ago, according to Jon Schei. At that time he obtained his merchant mariner credential with other Gunflint Trail guides, and it was good for five years. When asked over the phone if the Coast Guard’s presence on border lakes is simply enforcement of laws already in place, he said, “Yes and no.” TheCoast Guard was once more concerned with waterways leading to the nation’s borders when waterways were the nation’s highways. Its stepped-up enforcement now is part of an initiative to clarify exactly which waterways fit the “federally navigable waters” definition, Schei said.
The cost of obtaining the necessary credentials is between $600 and $1,300, Schei said, about what he would make from three to five days of guiding. The real impact will be for canoe outfitters that typically use college-age summer employees to take clients and their canoes from the outfitters to their BWCA starting points across Saganaga, a large lake with waves that can be dangerous for canoeing. Finding the time and money to get temporary employees credentialed could be a hardship.
The problem, according to Shei, is that two federal standards are competing: He believes the Coast Guard interprets “commerce” widely, which is why a commercial license is required for transporting people to their BWCA starting point. The U.S. Forest Service allows only a narrow margin of “commerce,” however, said Schei. Guides leaving the BWCA for Canadian waters, for example, must stay overnight at a residence or lodge in order to be exempt from having to get the same kind of permit ordinary campers must obtain. Buying a pack of gum at a Canadian lodge does not count as part of the commercial venture, Schei said.
“We’re just being regulated to death up here,” Schei said. “It’s hard, and it gets frustrating. Sometimes you just want to give up.”
An outfitter’s costs
“The Coast Guard wants to ensure the safety of all paying passengers on their waterways because it is their duty to do so,” Voyageur Canoe Outfitters owner Sue Prom wrote in her November 16 Boundary Waters Blog. “We want to keep our passengers safe while transporting them via towboats on Saganaga Lake. To the best of my knowledge there has never been a fatality or accident involving towboats in the Boundary Waters or on the Gunflint Trail. We keep a careful eye on the weather, train our employees, and insist all passengers wear their life vests and remain seated until the ride comes to a complete stop.”
Prom said the Coast Guard officers who came to Cook County expressed willingness to try to create a limited license and lower the price of the required class because “the amount of boat traffic in the BWCA is limited…by the quota system, and barge and freighter traffic isn’t possible, so it’s lowered risk out where we’d be boating.
“All of this doesn’t sound too outrageous if a person wanted to make a living as a captain,” said Prom. “Unfortunately, operating a towboat service on Saganaga is just one of the many services we provide. It isn’t a very lucrative business to say the least. …In all a towboat driver spends a minimum of an hour and a half of time for $80 gross profit [not counting expenses]. I’m not a mathematician, but I can quickly see there isn’t enough profit to be able to add $1,500 of training for each of our towboat drivers.
“…If we were willing to invest that amount of money in a person so they could be licensed, chances are it would be for less than three months of work as most of our staff attends college. When would these students have the time to complete the training?
“‘Aye, aye, Captain!’ Next summer that is how you may need to address our towboat drivers, or should I say towboat captains?” Prom wrote. “Send out an S.O.S. – we need help!”
Requirements for merchant mariner certification include:
»» filing an application »» first aid/CPR course
»» physical exam (Operators can be
taking no legal drugs that impair
motor skills or awareness.)
»» drug test
»» nautical exam regarding seamanship,
safety, laws, regulations, and “rules of the road” »» Transportation Worker Identification
Card (“TWIC” – requires
fingerprinting and limited-scope
background investigation)
»» national driving registry record
check
»» proof of experience operating a
boat
»» renewal every five years
Leave a Reply