City ponders more policing to quell noisy jet boats

City councillors are going to see if more prominent policing on the North Saskatchewan River is enough to quiet conflicts between noisy boaters and irritated members of the public.

Roger Kehoe, president of Kehoe Marine Services, which provides commercial jet boat services on the river, and Mike Tynan, who has been operating Klondike Jet Boats on the river since 1981, blamed a lack of police presence for allowing a handful of bad boaters and personal watercraft enthusiasts to cause most of the trouble.

“The laws exist, but they are very seldom enforced,” Kehoe said at a community and public services committee meeting Monday.

Kehoe said he has spent nearly 100 days on the river each season for the last three years and understands where various complaints about speeding, excessive noise, large wakes and rude behaviour are coming from.

In 2016, city officials received two noise complaints connected to activities on the river, while Edmonton police reported four such complaints. That’s down from 10 complaints received by the city the year before, which had city councillors questioning if the public had simply given up complaining when nothing was done.

“We see the behaviours, but we see no one else there in an official capacity to be able to deal with the various behaviours,” said Kathy Dent with Explorer Industries, a company that sells custom river boats.

In 2016, park rangers spent approximately 110 hours on the river supporting civic events, police and firefighters, as well as on general patrol.

“Effectively, 10 days out of a 120day season is not sufficient for a presence of police or rangers,” said Charles Richmond, with the Sierra Club of Canada in Edmonton, who expressed concern about how unchecked wakes and motor boats travelling up environmentally sensitive back channels could impact wildlife.

Tynan said the enforcement efforts just aren’t enough.

“They’re not there at the right time,” said Tynan. “They are not

Our ability to respond is slow, just by the nature of the boats. We can’t get out there and identify those individuals.

down at the boat launches checking the boats in the evening, on long weekends.”

David Aitken, city branch manager of community standards, admits that by the time police investigate a complaint on the river, the offending boat is often long gone.

“Our ability to respond is slow, just by the nature of the boats. We can’t get out there and identify those individuals,” Aitken said.

The committee voted in favour of education and refocusing existing policing resources to be more effective while the city explores increasing enforcement, the cost of which will be due in a report back to the committee in early 2018, as city council also looks at increasing access points to the river.