Permits?

Was anyone able to get anything?

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From what I’ve gallered from my buddies up there, that it was a complete Sh*t show this morning when the time came for permits to be available. The FS is going to redo the system

Just seen that the website will not be ready till after February 19th, to give their contractor time to fix the bugs and go thru testing

To err is human.

To really screw up, give the government a computer.

S.R.

Steve Root wrote:

To err is human.

To really screw up, give the government a computer.

S.R.

I typically have my permit purchased, PTO requested, and planning in process. This year… I have nothing!

They are cancelling any permits that people were lucky enough to obtain, and re-opening the process later this month. Feb 19th is what I read as well, that jibes with Justin’s comment. Stole this from bwca.com:

Good evening all – Today a handful of cooperators met at the Kawishiwi Ranger District to talk with several of us from the Superior, several from the Washington Office of the Forest Service that supervise the contract for the Recreation.gov permit system, and some of the developers from the Contractor. Additionally we had staffers from Rep Stauber’s office and Senator Klobuchar’s office. Forest reps and cooperators and staffers were in the room, the others were on a Zoom video conference.

We had a good meeting and wrote down all the issues many of you experienced when you were trying to reserve permits. We talked about a process going forward and communication on that process. The small group will meet again to experience how the other permits (overnight Motor and overnight Paddle) are reserved. Following that meeting, we will have more information about what fixes you should expect to the system, and (roughly) when they will be completed.

The contractor also described what went wrong on Wednesday and how they will fix it, and test it to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The contractor and the FS are confident that we will not Go Live again before February 19. This will allow them to put the system through all levels of load testing. So please pass along that Recreation.gov will not Go Live until sometime after 2/19. We will keep you posted.

We will offer training on the Recreation.gov site to cooperators before we go live.

The group today helping us to understand the issues all of you have been experiencing included Kathleen Floberg from Camp Widjiwagan, Betsy and Willy Vosburgh of Custom Cabins, Jason Jabokrsky of Ely Outfitting Company and Boundary Waters Guide Service, Dave Sabesta from Williams and Hall, Bob LaTourell, Ginny Nelson of Spirit of the Wilderness, Ida Rukavina from Klobuchar’s office, and John Eloranta from Pete Stauber’s office. From the Superior, I was there, Connie Cummins our Forest Supervisor, and Dawn Labolt our Staff Officer for Recreation, Wilderness, Minerals, and Lands.

I apologize that I could not include you all. I did my best to gather a group of diverse cooperators that could represent the rest of you.
We will keep you posted as soon as we have more to share Gus.

Was anybody else on the site to reserve their permits at 9am this morning? Process was smooth as butter for me. Secured two motor permits for Clearwater Lake (the gunny side). We’ll be fishing Clearwater 2 days and then heading over to Gunflint lodge where we can choose between Gunny and Magnetic, and possibly Little Gunny and North if there’s enough water to move a 14-footer through.

Pretty excited for this trip. Look out lakers!

Steve Root wrote:

To err is human.

To really screw up, give the government a computer.

S.R.

In fairness, “the government” had very little to do with this failure. The site was farmed out to an established and well-known contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton. They were paid $182 million by the government to do this right. They didn’t.

I thought it went ok as well. There were some small things that could be changed to make getting multiple permits a little easier. I was skeptical on being able to get the permits I wanted with the new first come system but if every year goes like this, I am all in for the new system.

beardly wrote:

I thought it went ok as well. There were some small things that could be changed to make getting multiple permits a little easier. I was skeptical on being able to get the permits I wanted with the new first come system but if every year goes like this, I am all in for the new system.

I had pretty much the same experience. If you’re buying a mixture of day/overnight and motor/paddle for different EP’s on different weeks, the way the system is set up makes it a long process.

That said, maybe it’s good that it’s not SO easy. Maybe they have a maximum permit per order limit that I’m not aware of, but if not, a person could get on there and secure a bunch of DM’s all at once for nothing but the $6 reservation fee. There are a lot of opinions on how the BWCA should be used, specifically in terms of motor boats. Somebody who wanted to limit motor access — and those people exist — could definitely do some damage in a hurry for very little investment.

I saw on another forum how the day motor permits for Basswood were gone by 9:30am. Someone did the math and that was 1,314 permits! I know Basswood is highly coveted and considered one of the best fishing lakes in the BW, but c’mon. I would be very interested to know how many of those 1,314 permits went unclaimed at the end of the season.

Justin Laack wrote:

to give their contractor time to fix the bugs and go thru testing

Why does this ring like the drivers license fix fiasco?

I think it a horrible system when you are working on o Monday morning. No bwca trips this year I guess, absolutely ridiculous! Nothing wrong with the lottery system. So let’s spend millions so people have to take off work just to have a chance to secure a permit in order to enjoy the boundary waters.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Justin Laack wrote:</div>
to give their contractor time to fix the bugs and go thru testing

Why does this ring like the drivers license fix fiasco?

Yes and no. In both cases, government agencies contracted outside vendors to complete a project for them. In both cases the vendor did poor work, and both had false starts. But beyond that I think they’re quite different situations.

With MNLARS the state responded by cancelling the contract with HP for failure to perform, and then took on the project internally and proceeded to launch before ready. They messed it up tenfold, wasted millions of dollars, and caused major issues for months on end — all for a system that all vehicle owners this state are required to use by law.

Whereas w/ the BWCA, yes they launched before ready, but when the poo hit the fan they instantly pulled the plug and worked with the contractor to resolve the issues before going live again. The total amount of downtime was just over 1 month — all for a non-essential, recreational service.