This commentary is by Jack Widness, a retired academic pediatrician who lives on Lake Raponda in Wilmington and is an organizer of Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes. He is co-author of more than 225 peer-reviewed scientific publications.
“They’re not making any more lakes; we’ve got to take care of the ones we have.” This is what my Lake Raponda neighbor, Laura Winter, was told decades ago as a teenager by her father, Karl.
I think of his words often since the appearance of wake boats on Lake Raponda.
Wake boats — large, heavy, powerful boats weighted down at the back by ballast tanks — are designed to create waves large enough to wake-surf without a tow rope.
Issues raised by these behemoth vessels include environmental damage to shorelines and lake bottoms; personal property damage to boats, docks and retaining walls; safety threats and enjoyment use issues to other lake users; and lake-to-lake spread of aquatic invasive species by means of their ballast tanks.
In March 2022, Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes, a group of citizens concerned about the well-being of Vermont lakes, filed a petition with the Agency of Natural Resources requesting that the Vermont Use of Public Water Rules be amended to address these and other wake boat issues.
The Responsible Wakes petition seeks to minimize the damage to small- and medium-sized lakes — those lakes most vulnerable to the effects of wake boats — by requiring wake boats to operate at a distance from shore of at least 1,000 feet (the current distance is 200 feet), in water at least 20 feet deep (there is no current depth requirement), and in a contiguous area of at least 60 acres.
In response, the Department of Environmental Conservation proposed a rule that largely agrees with those parameters except for the distance from shore, which it proposes to be 500 feet. The department’s position is that the 1,000-foot operating distance is not supported by the current science, whereas 500 feet is.
Responsible Wakes for Vermont Lakes disagrees.
The 1,000-foot distance included in the Responsible Wakes petition relies on several scientific studies, the details of which are available on the group’s website. These studies were conducted by the leading researchers on wave action and water quality. Their conclusions range from “over 600 feet” to “at least 300 meters (984 feet).”
It has been argued that these studies are not conclusive — that more and better data are needed before a rule can be made. Here is the problem with that argument: Science takes time. Science begins with knowledgeable individuals making careful observations that tell a story. Scientists then formulate a hypothesis and test this in the lab or natural world. When the hypothesis doesn’t produce the expected results, more and sometimes different types of observations are made, and a new hypothesis is formulated and tested.
The iterative scientific process takes time to reach an optimal conclusion.
Wake boats arrived on the scene nationally less than 20 years ago and in Vermont only in the past five to ten years. While progress has been made in understanding the damaging effects resulting from this new, powerful watercraft, we are at the beginning stages of this iterative process.
Fortunately, there is much more science on the way.
A policy that looks only at the research available today does not do justice to the problem. Current studies do not evaluate the anticipated additional impact that will be caused by the industry trend to produce ever-heavier wake boats making ever-bigger wakes.
While we wait for the science to catch up — as it surely will — we need to protect our lakes to the fullest extent possible now. Both current science, and the testimony of keen observers who live on and know our lakes, inform us that the distance-from-shore requirement needs to be much greater than 500 feet.
To be clear, Responsible Wakes strongly supports the Department of Environmental Conservation decision to address the management of wake boats on Vermont lakes. At the same time, we ask that the distance-from-shore requirement be extended to 1,000 feet.
If the department sticks to its proposed 500-foot distance, and it proves to be the wrong one — as studies and lakeshore resident testimonials suggest — the cost to remedy the damage will be great, with some damage being irreversible.
We have graphic real-life examples here in Vermont of what happens when safeguards are not put in place early enough. To quote my Franklin County friend, Bill Brooks, “overregulating our natural resources may not be the ‘Vermont way’ but look at what under regulation has resulted in here in Franklin County … Lake Carmi, St. Albans Bay. Don’t we wish we had regulated water quality on these water bodies a little (or a lot) more closely over the years? Here in Franklin County, we have learned the hard way that damage caused to our lakes is not easy or inexpensive to reverse. I won’t live to see St Albans Bay with clean water like it was in my youth.”
The American astronomer Carl Sagan wrote, “People sometimes need to make real-world decisions before academic studies can offer unambiguous conclusions.”
We are exactly at that point with the wake boat decision. We should err on the side of caution. If we make the wrong decision now, we could end up with more situations like those in Franklin County.
