Draft state rule would regulate wake boats on Lake Iroquois

Joe Allen’s home in Hinesburg is near the Lake Iroquois dam, with a steep shoreline and a “tiny beach” on the property. When wake boats motor across the 247-acre lake, the resulting waves cause all sorts of disruption.

“I’ve seen small children get knocked down by these waves, (and) they make it a challenge to people walking on the neighbor’s floating docks,” he said.

Allen was one of more than 60 people — and at least a dozen Hinesburg residents — who voiced their support during a public meeting last week on a draft rule that would significantly regulate the use of wake boats on Vermont’s lake and ponds. Wake boats are motorboats designed to specifically produce large waves for wake boarding and wake surfing — the fastest growing segment of the watercraft and recreational boating industries, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.

“I’m sure wakeboarding is a lot of fun, but it should be done on large bodies of water,” Allen said.

Other states — Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Oregon, for example — have rules in effect regulating use of wake boats. But a new draft rule that the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation has prepared “would be by far the most restrictive rule in the U.S.,” said Oliver Pearson, the lakes and ponds program manager with the DEC.

Efforts to regulate wake boats have gained traction since March of last year, when Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes petitioned the state Agency of Natural Resources, urging the state to restrict them to at least 1,000 feet away from shorelines and in water that is at least 20 feet deep.

The group identified Lake Iroquois in Hinesburg as one of more than a dozen lakes throughout the state where wake boats and wake-enhancing devices can cause environmental damage. The Hinesburg selectboard in June then sent a letter of support to the state asking them to study the issue and develop regulations.

The draft rule would allow wake boats on 31 Vermont lakes, under the conditions that the boats stay 500 feet from the shore on all sides and in water at least 20 feet deep. Boats must also stay in one lake per calendar year to mitigate the spread of invasive species like zebra mussels.

“We anticipate that there’ll be lots of people who criticize this rule. Some will say it’s too restrictive. Others will say it’s not restrictive enough,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like if everybody hates you for different reasons, then you’re probably in the right place when it comes to regulation.”

But for most of the meeting last week, speakers called for even more restrictive regulations on the boats — as laid out in Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes’ original petition.

“Your responsibility is to adopt rules which protect the public waters of our wonderful state, it’s not to try to reach a compromise with wake boat owners,” said Peter Erb of Hinesburg. “There’s strong evidence that 1,000-foot setback should be mandated, and to adopt less will not be in the interest of the protection of these waters, but some baseless accommodation to a relative tiny group of people in the waters that are your responsibility to protect.”

Opponents say the draft rule would be overly restrictive — that there’s little evidence showing a need for 1,000-foot offset, and, according to studies conducted by the industry, 200 feet is just fine. But advocates for more stringent regulations on wake boats have pointed to studies showing the environmental harm their wakes produce.

Wake boats have a stronger wake than more conventional motorboats, and the downward direction propeller wires can distort lake bottom sediments.

“We’re concerned about this, particularly in Vermont, where there’s a lot of sediment from many years of surface water runoff into our lakes through our tributaries,” which often contain nitrogen and phosphorous, Pearson said.

If that sediment is disturbed, that phosphorus could come up into the water column, become available for plant and algae growth, and can contribute to growth of invasive species and cyanobacteria blooms, said Laura Dlugolecki, with the state DEC.

“This is a big concern for water quality in Vermont,” she said.

Studies have also shown that because of their ballast tanks, wake boats spread invasive species when moved between water bodies.

The DEC has held three public hearings thus far — one in Richmond, Manchester and, on Feb. 15, in Greensboro. They released their draft rule on Jan. 31, but that will still have to go through a robust process before it becomes law.

DEC officials said during the meeting that they would take into consideration comments aired during the meeting on Wednesday.

“Eventually, we hope to submit... to the legal formal rule making process, and there will be another public hearing, or public hearings, given the amount of interested in this issue,” Pearson said. “There are still other bites at the apple to influence this process.”