New rules are being considered for the use of wake boats on Vermont’s lakes and ponds, in response to a push by concerned residents.
Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes filed a 54-page petition in March calling on the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation to tighten the regulation of wake boating. The total number of wake boats on Vermont’s waterways is unknown, since a lot of them are owned by tourists.
The grassroots Responsible Wakes group, which has about 40 members, makes the case that this increasingly popular form of boating contributes to shore erosion and the spreading of aquatic invasive species. They also worry it poses a safety risk for swimmers.
“I’d like to see what I have preserved for other generations,” says Mark Milazzo, a spokesperson for Responsible Wakes, who lives on Peacham Pond. Milazzo says the proposed rules are crucial to ensuring that lakes and ponds can be enjoyed by all.
Wake boats are powerboats or motorboats designed to create large wakes for activities such as wakeboarding or wakesurfing. The boats work mainly by using their weight to displace water. A ballast tank holds water in the bottom of the boat, weighing down the stern and creating surfable waves.
While Vermont regulates boats, it does not have rules specifically for wake boats. The petition, which cites 56 scientific studies, calls for keeping these boats at least 1,000 feet from the shoreline — that safety zone is now 200 feet — and establishing a minimum depth requirement for the boats to operate in, and designating a 60-acre contiguous area as a wake sport zone.
The Department of Environmental Conservation can either approve all the rules proposed in the petition, amend the list of rules, or deny any rule changes. According to environmental program manager Oliver Pierson, the department has not taken a stance on the accuracy of claims made in the petition. The department is not conducting its own research, but is reviewing published research to help guide its decision, which could come as early as August.
First, however, the department will hold two public hearings to explain the petition and allow public comments on potential rules for wake boats.
The hearings, both at 5:30 p.m., will be held on June 29 at Richmond Free Library and July 7 at the Manchester Community Library. Both can be attended virtually. People who wish to speak are asked to submit a request by 4 p.m. the day before.
“It’s important to note that initiation of formal rulemaking does not mean that the rule will be implemented or that it will pass,” Pierson said.
According to Responsible Wakes members, unless the rules are adopted, lasting effects could result for ecology and the number of visitors to the lakes.
Currently, Vermont requires that wake boats operate at least 200 feet from shore, on par with recommendations from the Water Sport Industry Association, a national water sport advocacy group.
Responsible Wakes argues that raising this requirement to 1,000 feet will ensure that any waves created by a wake boat will dissipate by the time they reach shore, thus allowing shoreline wildlife and their habitats to flourish.
If the rules in the petition are adopted, Vermonters and visitors would have 19 lakes that permit wakeboarding. Most inland lakes over 500 acres would fit the criteria, and Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog are excluded from the petition.
The boats’ ballast tanks are a primary source of concern for the petitioners. They argue that the tanks may spread invasive aquatic species because they cannot be drained or examined thoroughly. And, because the tank weighs down the boat, the propeller is lower than on other boats, causing a greater chance of shifting lake bottom sediment and spreading harmful phosphorus.
Responsible Wakes also contends the waves created by wake boats overpower other activities and make it undesirable for other lake users because of the increased likelihood of injury.
But Brad Fralick, chief government affairs officer at the Water Sport Industry Association, said the opposite is true.
“It’s never a good idea to make a policy that is going to greatly overcrowd the waterways,” Fralick said. He suggested that limiting the sport to certain lakes would make any injuries more common because the wake boats would be more concentrated in one area. “That’s just an invitation for disaster.”
In 2015, the association conducted its own study that showed in lakes of about 200 acres, the height of waves by the time they reached the shore was 9 to 11 inches. According to the association, those wave heights are consistent with the size of wind-driven waves that occur naturally. The industry group argues that wake boat-generated waves are actually less harmful than wind-driven waves because they lose energy, dissipating more quickly, while wind-driven waves typically maintain constant energy.
“Our main goal in all of this has always been education,” Fralick said.
Popular mostly in the West and South, wake boats and their corresponding sports are fairly new to New Englanders, according to Milazzo and Fralick. The petition cites research that wake boating is the fastest-growing watersport in the nation.
However, according to Milazzo, the group surveyed 14 waterways in Vermont and found that wake boating makes up less than 1 percent of Vermont waterway use. Lake Raponda in Wilmington, Lake Iroquois in Chittenden County and Joe’s Pond, shared by Cabot and Danville, are particularly being affected by wake boat use, Milazzo said. The state doesn’t track wake boat use, according to Pierson.
Wake boat users are a “very small percent of users on the waterways, but they have the most significant impact and do that at the expense of all the other uses of the lakes and ponds,” Milazzo said.
