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BILL MAKES WAVES FOR BOATING COMMUNITY.


Byline: Tom Stienstra San Francisco Examiner The San Francisco Examiner is a U.S. daily newspaper. It has been published continuously in San Francisco, California, since the late 19th Century. History
19th century
The beginning of the Examiner is a topic of some controversy.
 

How would you like to buy a boat with a $10,000 motor, the finest you could get just a year ago, then be told you can't use it at your favorite lake?

Or how would you like to be a fish in a lake where hundreds of people were dumping four and five gallons of gasoline into the water every day, all summer long? Or if you lived nearby, how would you like to drink that water?

These are the issues, forming a nightmare paradox for many, that will be raised this week in the California Legislature.

Assembly Bill 2439 will be formally introduced by Assemblywoman Debra Bowen Debra Bowen (born October 27, 1955) is a California politician from the Democratic Party. She has been California Secretary of State since January 8 2007. Prior to becoming Secretary of State, she was a member of the California State Legislature from 1992 to 2006. , D-Torrance, into the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. It proposes to outlaw 500,000 boats from many of California's most popular recreation lakes, including Castaic and Pyramid lakes, Clear Lake, Shasta Lake, Folsom Lake and Lake Tahoe.

No angler, water skier or pleasure boater would intentionally harm the water they love. At the same time, many have spent thousands of dollars to buy the best motors available for their boats and to have them suddenly rendered illegal without replacement is mind-boggling.

But tests have documented that 25 percent of the fuel-oil mix used in two-cycle engines that are carbureted car·bu·ret  
tr.v. car·bu·ret·ed or car·bu·ret·ted, car·bu·ret·ing or car·bu·ret·ting, car·bu·rets
To combine or mix (a gas, for example) with volatile hydrocarbons, so as to increase available fuel energy.
 or use electronic fuel injection passes through the engine unburned to help cooling. That means if a boater burns 20 gallons of gas in a day, five gallons of it pours unburned into the water.

Enter Bowen. She is making a run for state Senate this fall in Southern California, and clean drinking water drinking water

supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g.
 is the campaign issue she will ride all summer. The specifics of her proposal have shocked people in the boating industry across the United States, as well as California boat owners who never imagined that a $25,000 boat could become illegal - and that they will have to spend another chunk of money to continue their sport.

This is the way it would work: Of California's 800,000 registered boats, the law would prohibit operation of about 500,000 of them at about 60 lakes that are identified as being used for drinking water. Those 500,000 boats, including all personal watercraft (Jet Skis, for instance), are targeted because they are equipped with the two-cycle engines. There is no grandfather clause grandfather clause, provision in constitutions (adopted 1895–1910) of seven post–Reconstruction Southern states that exempted those persons who had been eligible to vote on Jan. .

The law would not affect the recently introduced four-cycle engines and handful of new two-cycle engines with direct fuel injection, or inboard-outboard engines, or marine conversions of car engines, such as the Chevy V-8s so popular on hot rod ski boats. It also would exempt two-cycle engines with a rating of 10 horsepower or less, because they process relatively small amounts of fuel.

According to the California Department of Health Services Department of Health Services may refer to:
  • Los Angeles County Department of Health Services
  • California Department of Health Services a California state agency
, here is the first working list of lakes that would be affected. The list is tentative, and other lakes might be added.

Southern California: Big Bear Lake, Lake Cachuma, Lake Casitas, Castaic Lake, El Capitan, Hemet Lake, Lake Henshaw, Lake Hodges, Jennings Lake, Loveland Lake, Lopez Lake, Otay Lake, Perris Lake, Piru Reservoir, Pyramid Lake, Skinner Lake and Sutherland Lake.

Foothill country: Bass Lake, Camanche Lake, Clear Lake, Folsom Lake, Lake Natoma, Lake Pillsbury, Lake Sonoma, Millerton Lake, Lake Nacimiento, Pardee Lake, Lake San Antonio Lake San Antonio is a lake in southern Monterey County, California. The lake is formed by an earthfill dam on the San Antonio River. The dam is 202 feet (62 m) tall and was completed in 1965. The lake and dam are owned by the Monterey County Water Authority. , Santa Margarita Lake Santa Margarita Lake, also called Salinas Reservoir, is a lake several miles southeast of the town of Santa Margarita in San Luis Obispo County, California. The lake was created by the building of Salinas Dam on the southern end of the Salinas River, very close to the , Shasta Lake, Lake Tulloch and Whiskeytown Lake.

Sierra Nevada: Cherry Lake, Donner Lake, Davis Lake, Lake Spaulding, Lake Tahoe and Silver Lake.

San Francisco Bay Area “Bay Area” redirects here. For other uses, see Bay Area (disambiguation).

The San Francisco Bay Area, colloquially known as the Bay Area or The Bay
: Anderson Dam, Briones Reservoir (no boating is allowed there at present), Calero Reservoir, Lafayette Lake, Lake Berryessa, Lake Chabot, Lake Hennessey, Lexington Reservoir, Nicasio Reservoir, San Pablo Reservoir The San Pablo Reservoir is an open cut terminal water storage reservoir owned and operated by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). It is located in a valley north of Orinda, California and south of El Sobrante and Richmond, east of the Berkeley Hills. , Soulajule Reservoir, Stafford Lake and Upper San Leandro Reservoir (no boating is allowed there at present).

If this bill were to become law, there would be many consequences.

Lakes not on the banned list would get inundated in·un·date  
tr.v. in·un·dat·ed, in·un·dat·ing, in·un·dates
1. To cover with water, especially floodwaters.

2.
 with Jet Skis and other boats with the blacklisted engines. Manufacturers would be under tremendous pressure to deliver trade-ins on recently bought engines for nonpolluting engines at a reasonable cost. Buyers would have to be guaranteed by manufacturers that all new engines would make good on effluent tests.

In the next year, the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), independent agency of the U.S. government, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1970 to reduce and control air and water pollution, noise pollution, and radiation and to ensure the safe handling and  would be under tremendous pressure, if not a lawsuit, to make it national law.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (Color) If a bill introduced in the state Assembly becomes law, some 500,000 boats, including these personal watercraft at Castaic Lake, would be banned from about 60 lakes in California.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News
COPYRIGHT 1998 Daily News
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1998, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Publication:Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date:May 3, 1998
Words:749
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