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J. Kenney: I've got a small handout that I promise is very short. <br /> Mme. Chair: I'll have the staff distribute it for you. <br /> J. Kenney: Thank you. <br /> Mme. Chair: All right. Would you introduce yourselves for the tape and what group <br /> you're with? <br /> J. Kenney: Yes, my name is Jay Kenney. I'm the President of the American <br /> Whitewater Affiliation. <br /> Shelby Katz: I'm Shelby Katz with the Colorado Whitewater Association. I'm the <br /> Secretary of the Board of the Directors. <br /> J. Kenney: We're opposed to the bill. I know you want to hear that. I know that <br /> your time is compressed. But I thought it would useful to this <br /> committee to hear from some of the ultimate end users of these kinds <br /> of parks, instead of just hearing from policy wonks and experts on <br /> water. American Whitewater is a national organization with eight <br /> thousand members across the United States, some 200 of which live in <br /> Colorado. Our members travel all over the United States and all over <br /> the world to kayak and paddle. One of the areas within the sport of <br /> kayaking that is 'growing faster than any other is this idea that's called <br /> 'park and play'. And that is, you come to a feature like the Golden <br /> course, you park your car, you get out of your boat and you jump out <br /> • and you recreate, you play. You go up and down a fairly short stretch <br /> of stream as many times as you want or only once. Some of the <br /> features of this kind of a course are designed so that you can stay at the <br /> feature and do a series of repeated maneuvers that are really quite <br /> acrobatic. They call them rodeo for a reason, rodeos for a reason. <br /> And this is a form and a legitimate form of recreation. The handout <br /> that I've given you shows the growth in the sport. Whitewater <br /> kayaking is second only to snowshoeing, in terms of the growth. <br /> We're opposed — and in terms of the substance of the bill, it's really <br /> very simple. The system isn't broke. We don't need the CWCB to fix <br /> it. <br /> Mme. Chair: OK, Ms. Katz, were you going to speak? <br /> Shelby Katz: Yes, thank you. Again, I'm with the Colorado Whitewater <br /> Association. I'm also a lawyer here in Denver. But more importantly, <br /> I'm a kayaker. The Colorado Whitewater Association contributes <br /> significantly to Colorado. We educate paddlers and kayakers. We <br /> instruct boaters about boating and boating safety issues. We work to <br /> April 12, 2001 <br /> Page 20 <br />