Update: Jim King reports that the Recreational Boating Association and the Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Association have struck a deal on the legislation. Details to follow later.  –Marty

An alliance of recreational boating organizations is mobilizing to fight a bill before the Washington State Legislature that it fears could gut boating education programs across the state and jeopardize about $3 million in federal funding.

The bill, which is being pushed by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC), would likely result in redirecting nearly all U.S. Coast Guard funding for public boating safety and education efforts to local police and sheriff’s departments that currently provide marine patrols.

“It’s not that we have an aversion to marine law enforcement to crack the whip on irresponsible boaters,” said David Kutz, government affairs director for the Recreational Boating Association of Washington, which is among numerous organizations opposing the bill.

“But we don’t want to risk our federal funding because of a mandate to favor the blue lights on the water and let other important programs go.”

The WASPC says it is just trying to find a better balance between funding for education efforts and law enforcement.

“The level of upset from boaters has caught us a little off guard,” said Joanna Arlow, the sheriffs and police chiefs association’s policy director. “The goal of the bill is to have more of a dialog about what the need is, based on several recent studies, to improve boater safety.”

A state Senate hearing on the bill–which is being sponsored by state senators Dale Brandland, R-Bellingham; Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle; Paull Shin, D-Edmonds; and Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee–is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 9, at 1:30 in Olympia. A hearing in a companion bill in the House is set to take place on Friday, Feb. 13.

The dispute over the funding comes in the wake of several high-profile recreational boating fatalities over the past year. A Bellevue music teacher died in September on Lake Washington when a powerboat piloted by a 17-year-old rammed her anchored sailboat and launched over the stern. And a man was recently sentenced to six years in prison for operating a boat drunk and causing an accident that killed a man and two children on the Nisqually River in June.

In 2007, 26 people died in 22 boating accidents in Washington, according to Coast Guard statistics.

Each year, the Coast Guard provides money to states for boating education and safety programs based in part on the number of registered boats. In Washington, that grant totals about $3 million this year, said Jim King, a lobbyist for the recreational boaters association.

The money is administered by the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. Kutz said the state uses about half of the $3 million on boating education and safety programs. The rest goes to the 52 law enforcement agencies that provide marine patrols.

If passed, the bill would require the Parks and Recreation Commission to develop a plan to provide as much as 80 percent of that money to local law enforcement, thus vastly reducing the amount of funding for boater education. Developing the plan would likely cost about $300,000, according to state estimates.

The boaters association also worries that if most of the money is diverted to police and sheriffs departments, the Coast Guard could determine that the state is not using the funding as intended and is therefore ineligible to receive it altogether.

But Arlow says if that were the case, the commission would obviously recommend a different approach to distributing the money.

In recent years, the state has conducted several studies about how to improve safety on Washington’s lakes, rivers and saltwater areas, which included recommendations to increase the amount of funding for law enforcement patrols, Arlow said.

“Our intention is not to take money away from boaters,” Arlow said. “The money we are talking about isn’t going directly to boaters, per se; it is being used for public education efforts and marketing.”

But King said that’s exactly the point. Those funds support programs that promote the use of life jackets, plus training and other education efforts aimed at reducing accidents and deaths on the water.

“A lot of boaters feel that education will do more to reduce fatalities than having more money go for law enforcement on the water,” King said.

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