We tried to get a park set up on the chewuch river in the methow valley, and our dream ended much in the same way.  We teamed up with Scott Shipley and REP to design a park that would increase tourism and improve on a dangerous structure (wier) that had been causing paddlers, indigenous fish, and river recreationalists trouble for years.  We were working together with town officials as well as biologists to figure it out, but it came down to endangered fish species in the end.  Our plan would have improved the fish habitat without harming any fish species, (these guys at REP know their shit,) but indifference and small-town politics interfered and the town and its fishy friends were robbed of a unique and beneficial structure.  It looks like the Spokane project has been blugeoned to death in much the same way whitewater parks across the country have been removed from the slate, but I think continued efforts on the part of the whitewater paddling community would be helpful..  It's a tough one, because paddling is still a bit of an underground community (or subculture,) and there isn't enough popular sway to get the gears turning.  We just gotta keep pushing..   And if anybody's looking for a team to build a park, definitely look up Scott Shipley and REP designs;     www.wwparks.com .