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Vermonters seeking to limit the use of powerful wake boats on the state's lakes and ponds made it partway to their goal this year. A new rule limits where the motorized craft can be used for surfing, and it's the most restrictive in the country.
The Department of Environmental Conservation's rule, which went into effect on April 15, restricts wake sports to lakes that have a surface area of at least 50 acres and a depth of 20 feet. Even then, surfing must be undertaken at least 500 feet from shore.
Only 30 of the several hundred lakes and ponds in Vermont are large enough to accommodate a wake sports zone. Now people who live or boat on some of those lakes are looking for other ways to limit the sport.
"The situation is now potentially worse than it was before," said Meg Handler, who lives in Hinesburg on 229-acre Lake Iroquois. "Now wake sports are explicitly welcomed onto what is a tiny lake. The potential for abuse is there, and there is no enforcement."
Wake boat opponents unsuccessfully sought to ban them in 2019, but the issue didn't gain much attention until 2022, when people alarmed by the impact of the relatively new sport formed the group Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes. They asked the state to regulate how and where the craft could be used, with many saying the boats should be restricted to only the largest bodies of water, such as Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog.
Dozens of lake users testified at public hearings organized by the DEC that wake boat waves had capsized smaller vessels and damaged shorelines. Wake boats use powerful motors, V-shaped hulls and ballast tanks weighted with water to generate large waves used for surfing or wake board riding.
Many opponents voiced concerns that the ballast water would spread invasive species as the boats were transported from one lake to the next. That's why the new rule includes a "home lake" provision that requires a wake boat to remain in one body of water for a calendar year; the boats must be decontaminated before being moved to another body of water.
The DEC's guidelines represent the first statewide rule change for lakes and ponds since 1995, when the department limited the use of personal watercraft — Jet Skis and the like — to lakes that are larger than 300 acres.
While opponents had sought an even stricter limit that would keep wake boats 1,000 feet from shore, their owners and others say the rule already goes too far.
"I'm equating it to way back when snowboarding was introduced," wake surfer Robert Pearo of Rutland said. In the 1990s, several ski areas banned snowboards; Mad River Glen in Waitsfield still doesn't allow them. "Every time someone finds another way to enjoy something, someone has to say, 'You're ruining it for everybody else.'"
The issue has caused deep divisions among homeowners along Lake Iroquois, where the lake association has declined to take a position on the issue, association vice president Jane Clifford said. That puts the association at odds with homeowners such as Handler and Dani Sharpe, a summer resident who wants to keep the boats off the lake. The two say the new rule doesn't go far enough.
"We're not finished with this," Sharpe said. "We really disagree with it."
The only recourse for homeowner associations on the 30 lakes is to petition the DEC to have a body of water stricken from the list. Several lakes took that step in the early 2000s to keep personal watercraft away. So far, about half a dozen lake associations seeking to block wake boats have submitted petitions to the DEC, according to Laura Dlugolecki, an environmental analyst who works in the DEC's lakes and ponds program.
Greensboro, home to Caspian Lake, submitted a petition with 1,200 signatures last summer, before it was clear what the rule would say. Greensboro successfully petitioned to keep personal watercraft off the lake 20 years ago.
"Caspian Lake's outstanding tranquility, beauty, and water quality face an existential threat from wake boats," the petition says. Other petitions involve Lake Fairlee, Great Averill Pond, Little Averill Lake, Shadow Lake in Glover, and Echo Lake in Charleston. Another petition is on its way to the DEC from Friends of Waterbury Reservoir.
The new limits on wake sports could actually make things worse for kayakers, canoeists and swimmers on that 860-acre reservoir, group member Steve Brownlee said. His Stowe business, Umiak Outdoor Outfitters, sets up shop at the reservoir each summer to rent small craft to visitors.
Before the rule, wake boaters could go anywhere on the lake. Now, because they will be confined to a wake boat zone, "they'll all be concentrated in one area," Brownlee said — one that kayakers, canoeists and standup paddleboarders traverse. Friends of Waterbury Reservoir is petitioning to keep wake boats off the lake altogether.
Brownlee is concerned about safety and the potential for invasive species at the popular reservoir, which hosts water-skiers, a motorboat slalom course, and thousands of swimmers and small craft users. About 67,000 people visit the reservoir and adjacent Little River State Park in the summer. Despite that, he said, Waterbury Reservoir has so far stayed free of Eurasian watermilfoil. The invasive plant forms dense mats on the surface and interferes with lake ecology and recreation on affected bodies of water, including Lake Champlain.
Like many other lakes, Waterbury Reservoir has volunteer greeters at its boat launches to keep an eye out for invasive species clinging to the propellers of visiting craft. But the greeters — often high school students — don't have the authority to ask wake boat owners if they emptied or decontaminated their ballast tanks.
Wake boat tanks must be sanitized by a qualified service preapproved by the Agency of Natural Resources. The one closest to Waterbury Reservoir is in Burlington, Brownlee noted.
The new wake boat regulations were approved on February 15 by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, but support was tepid. Several members said they only voted yes because that body cannot amend rules, only approve or deny them — and they wanted to get some form of regulation on the books.
"I vote for this with a heavy heart, because I really don't like it," Rep. Seth Bongartz (D-Manchester) said. "What I see is the less than 1 percent of people who might have a wake boat imposing that on the other 99 percent in a way that I think is destructive."
"I think we can do better than this," said Rep. Carol Ode (D-Burlington). "I hope this does not end here."
The summer outlook is murky. Dlugolecki said the DEC is understaffed, and review of the petitions — a process that includes public hearings — will proceed slowly. The DEC doesn't have time to create a process for proving "home lake" or decontamination status in time for this year's boating season. Owners will be on an honor system when it comes to where they use their craft and what's in the tanks.
Meanwhile, more powerful wake boats are coming. Manufacturers this year are touting luxury models that weigh 8,000 pounds and hold 15 people.
"The future is bigger," said Brownlee, brandishing a flyer for an electric boat called the Gigawave that boasts "the largest wave ever created."
"Five years from now, 10 years from now, who knows what kind of technology is going to be out there?" Brownlee said. "They're just not going to be safe on a small body of water like Waterbury Reservoir."
Handler faulted the DEC for shifting the wake boat debate into the hands of individual homeowners at the 30 lakes. The Lake Iroquois Association has decided not to petition to keep the reservoir free of wake boats. But Handler and Sharpe want to keep fighting. They say the presence of a tiny island in the lake should disqualify Lake Iroquois from wake sports, and both worry about the impact on safety and ecology. But the discussion, they said, is a difficult one.
"I have wake boat people living on either side of me, and they're the nicest, loveliest people in the world, and I don't want to offend them," Handler said. "It's kind of agonizing, to be honest."
Pearo wake surfs on Lake Bomoseen, one of the lakes deemed suitable by the DEC. Like many of the wake boat owners who participated in the hearings, he said he thinks opponents of wake surfing won't be satisfied until the sport is banned from all of Vermont's lakes.
The original print version of this article was headlined "Making Waves | For wake boat opponents, new rules mean new battles"
Tags: Politics
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