Park service to ban kegs, dry ice bombs

They may be a right of passage, but beer kegs, beer bongs and "dry ice bombs" will not be tolerated on the Current and Jacks Fork rivers, the National Park Service said Tuesday in announcing a crackdown on drunken, rowdy behavior on the federally protected streams.

Noel Poe, superintendent of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in south-central Missouri, said he will sign new regulations today that will take effect May 1.

The new rules are aimed at halting public drunkenness, illegal drug use, fighting, public nudity, littering, profanity, loud music and other "obnoxious behavior" that park rangers have struggled to control the past few years along the rivers' 134 miles, Poe said.

A minority of river users are causing the problems, he said, mostly 20- to 30-year-olds coming to the rivers on weekends "to let off steam."

"But family groups, Boy Scouts, church groups and other users have been driven out of here," he said. " ... We want to get the message out to the public and to our visitors that this isn't going to be tolerated. We will do our best to enforce it."

The park also is asking the public's help in reporting any violator's watercraft identification number to authorities.

Poe said he has observed the problem firsthand since arriving at the park in October 2002. He got an earful of complaints from park users last fall during public hearings on the national park's management plan.

He said the public's No. 1 concern is alcohol and related behaviors. "A lot of people at the meetings asked us to ban alcohol," Poe said. "I'm going to try everything else first."

Poe said he wrote the regulations with the help of neighboring sheriff's departments, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Missouri Water Patrol, canoe rental outfitters and other partners.

Alcohol is not banned in the park, but beer kegs, beer bongs and other "volume drinking devices" -- often used for chugging contests -- will be prohibited, as will "Jell-O shots" or other containers of alcohol and gelatin.

Poe is recommending that river users restrict themselves to six cans of beer per day, and that canoe- and raft-floaters bring a cooler no larger than one holding 48 quarts.

The Park Service will beef up staff on weekends, when most of the problems occur, both on the rivers and the landings.

The town of Van Buren, Mo., about two hours west of Cape Girardeau, depends heavily economically on floaters during the summer months.

Businesses supportive

Local business owners Friday seemed supportive of the move.

"If they banned drinking completely, none of us would have a job. I don't think anyone favors that, but nobody in my opinion needs to bring a beer keg on a canoe," said Kim Wooderson, owner of Big Spring Lodge and Restaurant in Big Spring Park near the river. Wooderson said some of her customers had been scared off the river in recent years because of bad behavior.

"Probably 90 or 95 percent of my business is families or older couples, and they're just not interested in going out on the river to get drunk," she said. "I think it's kept people off on certain times. Like they'll come during the week but not on weekends."

Beverly Mabry owns The Lodge on the Current, a cabin motel near the Current River. She said most of her business comes from college students but that she supports the move.

"I would like to see more families come over here. I'm not trying to run our guests out. Most of them are pretty decent people. But I would like to see more families," she said.

Rangers will be equipped with audio decibel readers to enforce National Park Service regulations on noise to discourage loud stereo systems and air horns.

The park also is prohibiting cliff jumping and rope-swinging within the park, which each year results in serious injury and death. Poe said the last few years of drought have left water holes more shallow and dangerous.

Park staff will step up efforts to combat littering, and enforce a prohibition on so-called dry ice bombs.

To make the bombs, dry ice pellets are placed in a soda bottle and thrown in the river. When warm water mixes with the dry ice, it produces an explosive chemical reaction.

"It makes a huge boom and tears up the bottle into shrapnel," deputy superintendent Russ Runge said. "I don't know what it's doing to aquatic life."

Staff writer TJ Greaney contributed to this report.