Meg Handler’s excellent letter called for wake boats to be limited to lakes with a 1,000-foot buffer from shore. Lake Morey, in Fairlee, is an approximately 550-acre lake, mean depth of 28 feet, maximum depth of 43 feet. It is approximately 2 miles long and 2,500 feet wide; therefore wake boats could theoretically operate within a narrow band in the middle of the lake.
Morey is a “residential lake” with a fairly high amount of boat traffic, including many unpowered vehicles. It is also home to two major children’s camps. These children swim, canoe and sail daily in boats easily upset by large waves.
The lake has had considerable problems with cyanobacterial blooms recently, something that wake boats exacerbate.
We finally had a loon pair successfully breed this year. Wake boats swamp loon nests, cause erosion of fragile lake shore and the spread of invasive species from their large ballast system.
If Vermont’s Department of Environmental Conservation allows wake boats on Lake Morey, to the exclusion of other, narrower lakes, this would encourage others to bring their wake boats to Morey. We rarely have Fish & Wildlife policing on our lake and enforcing any rules about distance from shore or cleaning of the ballast tanks would be virtually impossible.
I strongly encourage Vermont’s Department of Environmental Conservation to forbid wake boats in our beautiful state of Vermont or limit them to a large buffer, like half a mile from shore with a 40-foot or greater continuous water depth.
I think the pleasure of a few people surfing on lakes that will substantially interfere with the recreational pleasure of many people, as well as the health of our lakes, is highly inappropriate.
Jennifer Loros
Fairlee
