NARROWSBURG, NY — The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) loves the publicity the river has gotten in the Sullivan Catskills Travel Guide. UDC Chair James Greier said as much in a March 2 letter to Sullivan County Visitors Association (SCVA) Executive Officer Roberta Byron Lockwood.

However, Greier’s letter was really about a problem: the cover photo of the 2017 guide. It features a man in a tube floating on the water—which is great, except that the guy isn’t wearing a personal flotation device (PFD), more commonly known as a lifejacket.

Lifejackets are a sensitive subject along the Upper Delaware, where despite decades of marketing efforts, promotions and public service announcements, hardly a summer season passes without a river drowning incident. There have been 68 drowning deaths in the Upper Delaware since the National Park Service (NPS) started tracking the number in 1980. None of those victims was wearing a properly fitted lifejacket, according to the NPS.

In a letter approved at the March 2 meeting, Greier indicated that he was writing “in response to photographs on the cover and page 28 of the guide that depict floating in an inner tube and launching kayaks without any indication of… life jackets being present. While we understand that these photos are more artistic in nature to evoke the pleasure of these activities,” the photos on several other pages “that do show individuals responsibly wearing life jackets to recreate are no less compelling.”

Greier went on to provide the mortality statistics and past safety efforts. “We look to all opportunities to reinforce the value of PFD usage, such as the campaign of promotional lawn signs that appear… each spring urging people to ‘Wear It!’ with a graphic of a life jacket,”

Safety graphic examples were sent with the letter, one showing an edit of the cover photo with small graphic in a lower corner. UDC Executive Director Laurie Ramie reported Highland alternate member Debra Conway’s suggestion that UDC fund the printing of similar stickers to be provided to the county for the guide covers. But the panel panned the suggestion as impractical, concluding that many thousands of copies of the guide likely had already been shipped.

Greier offered UDC and NPS consultation on future guides for “a united front of positive, potentially life-saving messaging….”

SCVA chair Lockwood said the picture on the cover is not necessarily the river, it’s a picture a of man in a tube in water. She also said while SCVA believes safety is an important issue, the goal of her organization is to attract people to the river to use it.  She said SCVA has been a big booster of the river, and her organization is willing to work with any group to make improvements if needed.

In related business last week, the UDC approved a letter to NPS Superintendent Kris Heister, in opposition to a recent NPS staff opinion that NPS should no longer continue the use of river-height gauge signs on bridge abutments. The argument against the signs was that they require frequent replacement and are not particularly effective due to their limited visibility locations.

The UDC endorsed its Water Use and Resource Management (WURM) committee position that “educating the public about the presence and significance of the… signage is key to the effectiveness of this program, which they believe provides a simple and supplemental method of outreach to river users.”

Citing a near-dam failure emergency in California recently, the UDC approved a new letter to New York City officials seeking an update on the city’s previously announced plans to consider new methods to improve public emergency notification systems regarding city reservoirs.

They also announced that Rep. John Faso (R, NY 19)would be the featured speaker at the UDC’s April 23 awards banquet in Beach Lake, PA. “Maybe we should have a town-hall meeting,” Berlin Township delegate Al Henry quipped, highlighting the controversy over Faso’s reluctance to appear at open public gatherings during the recent Congresional recess.