Wake boats traversing Vermont waterways this summer will have to abide by strict new regulations. The state’s first-ever rule managing wakesports on lakes and ponds took effect April 15 after a two-year-long, citizen-led push.
Though the state’s new rule has been in place for less than a month, some are already pushing to further restrict the activity of such boats.
The creation of the rule was a notable victory for Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes, a citizen group that formed in 2021 and petitioned the natural resources agency to restrict wake boats to sharply defined areas.
Members of the group and environmentalists have argued that large wakes can disrupt the sensitive ecology of lake shorelines, such as loon nesting areas. And sudden waves can topple paddle boarders and kayakers nearer to shore.
Up until a month ago, wakesports were allowed anywhere a motor boat could travel more than 5 mph. Under the new rule, wake boats can only create wakes in ‘wake sports zones’, defined as 50 contiguous acres of lake, 500 feet away from the shoreline on all sides, and in water at least 20 feet deep.
The new parameters cut the number of lakes and ponds Vermonters can wakeboard in from 73 down to 30. The rules do not apply to waters that share borders with other states and countries, such as Lake Champlain, Wallace Pond, Lake Memphremagog, and the Connecticut River reservoirs.
Laura Dlugolecki, lake and shoreland permitting analyst at the Agency of Natural Resources, has called the rule the “most protective statewide wake sport regulation in the country to date.”
But for Jack Widness, one of the leaders of Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes, the rule does not go far enough.
“We’re glad to have anything,” said Widness. “But we interpret the science differently.”
The organization advocated for allowing wake boats to operate only in areas with 60 contiguous acres and 1,000 feet from the shoreline. This would have reduced the eligible wakeboarding lakes to 15.
Dlugolecki said the agency’s review of scientific literature did not “support an increase in the distance from shore to achieve the regulatory objectives for a statewide rule.”
“We’re extremely disappointed the ANR didn’t listen to the respondents,” Widness said, referencing 750 public comments that were submitted to the agency, 82% of which favored stricter rules.
Nevertheless, Widness said his group supported the rule because they felt it was urgent to secure its “Home Lakes” provision.
This provision states that, during the summer boating season, a wake boat cannot leave the same lake — its “home lake” — unless it is decontaminated by a service provider certified by the Agency of Natural Resources. Wake boats’ ballast systems — used to create larger wakes — threaten to transmit invasive species from one lake to another if left unchecked.
The Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, a panel of legislators charged with approving executive branch regulations, approved the rule on Feb. 15.
Now, the fight to further restrict wake boats has passed to local lake organizations. Forty-eight of these volunteer-run groups are part of the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds, a nonprofit dedicated to the well-being of the state’s lakes.
As of Friday, petitions from five of these organizations have been filed with the Department of Environmental Conservation, asking the state to prohibit wakesports in six more lakes.
Widness said that, although his organization was not directly responsible for the additional petitions, some members were helping advise the local lakes organization.
“We’re not the ones driving that train, but we’re helping, we’re supporting,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported the incorrect date in mid-February when the legislative committee approved Vermont's new wake boat rule.
