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<\/a> <\/p>\nA whitewater park planned for the Neuse River in Raleigh could become a reality, assuming a nonprofit can get environmental approvals and raise enough money to cover the $2.8 million price tag.<\/p>\n
Last month the Raleigh City Council unanimously voted in favor of design plans outlining the park on the Neuse River, right below the Falls Lake Dam.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo money will come from the government,\u201d said Dick Bailey a member of the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department. \u201cThe committee has offered to write grants, to find sources of outside funding that will pay for the construction documents, the permitting and the construction of the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n
By doing this, it will minimize the amount of money the city of Raleigh had to give the park. Larry Ausley, a member of the steering committee and a local Raleigh paddler, believes that played a part in acquiring council approval.<\/p>\n
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So far the Falls Whitewater Park steering committee has been given $300,000 from the city and Wake County, which paid the engineering firms to come up with a concept plan and a feasibility study.<\/p>\n
The proposed course will start just below the Falls Lake Dam and travel 600 feet downriver.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe length of the course was designed around the thought that we could have local and regional competitions,\u201d Ausley said. \u201cWe could have slalom races and downriver races.\u201d<\/p>\n
The renovations to the river will create a wider variety of rapids, providing opportunities for less experienced paddlers to learn about the sport and how to do it safely. That\u2019s something Risa Shimoda, the former executive director of American Whitewater and head of the Shimoda Group, believes will lead to more interest in the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, if you have no interest in it or don\u2019t think that it is for you because you don\u2019t have someone to teach you \u2014 a brother, sister or friend that does river sports \u2014 it might seem out of touch,\u201d Shimoda said. \u201cBut when parks are built and classes are offered and people drive by and see it, I think there will be a lot of interest in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting the city council\u2019s approval is just the first step in a series of hoops the steering committee will have to go through to get the Falls Whitewater Park operational; the next is the permitting process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe longest and most uncontrollable part of the process is permitting,\u201d Shimoda said. \u201cIt just takes a while. It is a technical exercise, so they just have to go through the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Permitting is estimated to take about a year. Then, assuming the committee has raised enough money, crews can finally put equipment in the river and construction on the park will begin.<\/p>\n
With all of the red tape, Ausley estimates it will be at least three years before the park is operational.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say from the point where we had money, you are probably looking at a year\u2019s worth of permitting process and then maybe a year to 18 months for the construction process,\u201d Ausley said. \u201cBut that is bare minimum. Everything would have to run perfect for that to happen, so easily three years or so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A whitewater park planned for the Neuse River in Raleigh could become a reality, assuming a nonprofit can get environmental approvals and raise enough money to cover the $2.8 million price tag. Last month the Raleigh City Council unanimously voted in favor of design plans outlining the park on the Neuse River, right below the Falls Lake Dam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24039,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,15],"tags":[263,264,265],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7265"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}