Waupaca County towns pass ordinances to prohibit wake-enhanced boating

Wake-enhanced boating is prohibited on the Waupaca Chain of Lakes following action this week by three town boards.

The towns of Dayton and Farmington passed ordinances banning the activity Tuesday and the Town of Lind did the same Thursday.

The vote by each town board was unanimous.

The actions came after about a year of public hearings, meetings and surveys showed overwhelming support for the prohibition.

"Our local residents made their views known clearly and strongly," said Fred Silloway of Waupaca, chairman of the Waupaca Chain of Lakes District . "They gave the town boards the confidence to move forward on these actions."

The chain of lakes district is an independent governmental body formed in 1991 for the protection and rehabilitation of waters in its jurisdiction.

The Waupaca chain is made up of small (all less than 115 acres), spring-fed lakes. Half have slow, no-wake regulations but a few allow standard motor boat activities.

The ordinances have the effect of banning wake-enhanced boating on Rainbow, Round, Columbia, Long, Stratton, and Spencer lakes, the largest in the Waupaca area.

Wake-enhanced boating is the use of power craft with special ballast tanks designed to increase their displacement and create larger than normal waves for surfing or tubing. Several thousand pounds of lake water are commonly taken into the tanks to increase the wake.

The waves are large enough to allow surfers to follow the boat without a tow rope.

While it provides an exciting recreational activity, wake-enhanced boating also has caused problems.

Dozens of property owners on the Waupaca Chain testified at public meetings this year with their concerns about the negative impacts of wake-enhanced boating. Their experiences included increased shoreline erosion, damage to aquatic vegetation and fish spawning habitat and conflicts with paddlers and other boaters.

Over the last year the town of Farmington passed then rescinded a prohibition on wake-enhanced boating. It led to a broader effort in the area to consider the issue.

A survey sent out this spring to people who had recreated on the Waupaca Chain resulted in 749 responses, 95.5% who supported wake-enhanced boating restrictions and 4.5% who did not.

The survey was followed by a citizen petition in May calling on the local town boards to address the issue, Silloway said.

The town boards finalized the ordinances this week.

The ordinances state "no person may use or employ water sacks, ballast tanks, submersible wings, or any other device that causes a boat to operate in a bow-high manner or increases/enhances a boat’s wake" and also that "no person may operate a boat in an artificially bow-high manner to increase/enhance the boat’s wake."

The prohibition includes wake enhancement by using ballast or mechanical hydrofoils.

The penalty for violating the ordinances is $500 for the first offense and $1,000 for the second offense within one year.

Importantly the ordinances do no not prevent people from using wake boats on the chain, only the use of the craft in wake-enhanced mode.

They also don't ban other water sports such as water-skiing or tubing.

The actions by the Waupaca County towns are part of a growing movement in Wisconsin to restrict wake boating.

Twenty-eight local ordinances on wake-enhanced boating are now in place in the state, according to Last Wilderness Alliance, a Presque Isle non-profit organization active in lake protection issues.

With the failure of the state legislature to take action on wake-enhanced boating, the trend toward local ordinances is likely to continue.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Waupaca County towns pass ordinances to prohibit wake-enhanced boating