Pelican town board takes up enhanced wake issue

On Monday, Nov. 17, the Pelican town board took up the issue of enhanced wakes and a possible ordinance for lakes that are located completely within the town. This would include Lake George and Lake Thompson. Close to 40 people packed the small town hall to express their concerns about the issue. Residents spoke about safety concerns, aquatic invasive species, shoreline erosion and destruction of habitat from the ability of large boats to resuspend sediment in shallower areas of even bigger lakes. Town chair Nick Scholtes said he had met with Dan Brekke, owner of Brekke’s resort, several times on the proposed ordinance and a petition asking for the town to create an ordinance, which would cover both of those lakes. With Lake George having a maximum depth of 26 feet and an average depth of 14 feet, and Lake Thompson having a maximum depth of 30 feet and an average depth of 11 feet, there was concern from town residents that large boats, operated in a bow-up manner, could cause damage to those lakes. Both lakes are just over 400 acres.

Scholtes said he had started to do research, which included reading through information on the Last Wilderness Alliance website as well as a study from the University of Minnesota. He read parts of that study to those assembled in the town hall. He then opened up the conversation to the floor. Several residents spoke about enhanced wakes, asking the town board to take up the matter by way of a town ordinance.

Town resident Dave Valentine said he felt it was a matter of safety. He said he was concerned for the silent sports enthusiasts that used the lakes. These people, he said, could easily be swamped or overturned by large wakes. Even pontoon boats, he said, have taken large wakes over their bows, which he said was another safety concern. 

Valentine said he also looked at five different studies that said basically the same things, although one study said a minimum depth should be 16 feet and another said 30 feet, still the average depth of either lake would be prohibitive for creating enhanced wakes.

“I’d like the lake for everybody,” he said. “We use it for fishing and boating and all kinds of other stuff. This is an activity that really restricts everybody else’s use of the lake.”

Kim Zambon of Holiday Acres also spoke, saying the town had an opportunity to address a problem before it became a larger issue. There were no residents on either lake, he said, that currently had a wake boat. While he said he understood that enforcement might be difficult, he said he still wanted to see the ordinance in place. The idea of putting an ordinance into place before anyone on the lakes owned a wake boat was a recurring theme throughout the evening, as was enforcement. The general idea was, if an ordinance was already in place, and a person who wanted to use a wake boat wanted to buy lake property, likely would look for another property on a lake where that activity was allowed.

“There are a lot of laws that aren’t enforced stringently, but they are there for our use when we need them,” Zambon told the board. 

Brekke said he saw it, first and foremost, as an educational tool. He said there were 72 towns with an enhanced wake ordinance and no known citations issues.

“That speaks volumes and goes to show that if you have an ordinance in place, there’s teeth to it right there,” Brekke said. “We’re going to follow the ordinance. We’re going to follow the law.” He continued on to describe to board members what enforcement would look like and how the town would go about sending a ticket to an offender if all of the needed documentation was in place. 

Several others said they felt the town had not only the authority, but the responsibility to act to protect the citizens as well as the lakes.

Brekke said townspeople were coming to the board looking for help to get some legitimacy to their concerns. He said people could still bring those boats to a lake and use their boat all day long. What townspeople did not want to see was the filling of the ballast tanks. That specific way of operating the boat was what was at issue.

 Mark Kafka spoke about aquatic invasive species and the potential for ballast tanks to transport invasive species from one lake to another. He also spoke about the potential for property values to fall when invasive species took hold in a lake. 

Board member Wally Dahlquist said all boats could transport invasive species. While he understood the issue with ballast tanks, he reminded residents that water in the live well of a fishing boat had the same potential to move aquatic invasive species.

Town resident Nick Strump said he had worked previously as a scuba diver for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and had experience with wake boats driving directly over him while he was under the water and said it was really “not that big of a deal.” He told the crowd that he did not see that wake boats caused any issues under the water that other boats did not cause. All boats, he said, disturb sediment, pointing to those concerned about habitat loss and issues with sediment being resuspended in the water column.

“I’m completely neutral in this matter,” he said. “But I can tell you that I’ve done the research on both sides. You’ll find studies going both ways.”  He said he lives on the Wisconsin River, where large boats, including wake boats, had been coming within 35 feet of his shoreline there, and he had seen no issues with erosion. He said he had found studies that reported the impact of enhanced wakes, after 100 feet, was “not that big of an impact” as people were making it out to be.

“There’s all these people saying these wakes are so big,” Strump said. “They’re not”. He said there was also no safety issue with being able to see smaller boats and others on the lake when operating a wake boat. “These people are spending $100,000 to $200,000 to buy these boats. Who has the right to say they can’t use their boat? They have every right to use their boat, just like you have the right to use your boat.”

Several other town residents spoke about their concerns, and several pointed out that attendance at this meeting was exponentially higher than a typical town board meeting, showing the concern of people in the town.

Once public comments and input had concluded, the board had discussion. Dahlquist said all of the things about which residents were concerned had already taken place. Shoreline erosion and other issues due to boat traffic and waves were already present, even without wake boats. Residents agreed this was the case, but still expressed concern that, without regulation regarding where enhanced wake activity could take place, those issues would be easily exacerbated.

Dahlquist said he also had some concerns that the town did not have an attorney, should that become a need. He said he would rather see the state take up the issue, but that seemed to be years down the road, if at all. 

Mary Jung from the Last Wilderness Alliance said there were lawyers available to municipalities. Valentine said the Wisconsin Towns Association would appoint an attorney that could represent the town.

Scholtes said the discussion had given him a lot of food for thought and a direction in which to research more about the topic. He said he felt it was clear, however, that it was the wish of the town to turn to the board to create this ordinance. He said he did not think the board was against the idea, either.

“The biggest thing that we had talked about was, are creating a paper tiger?” Scholtes asked. He then turned to the residents in attendance. “Are you comfortable with creating a paper tiger?”  he asked. The question was met with a resounding, “Yes” from residents in attendance.

He said he did not want to see anything happen to the lakes in the town or any of the lakes in the area. He said he would do more research and asked that other board members do the same. Brekke said he had brought paperwork to the board before Scholtes was chair regarding how to go about creating an ordinance and laying out the first steps. Scholtes said he would like Brekke to forward that information to the board again so they could make a plan to take action on the concerns of the residents. 

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].