KENT, CONN.—In a mild and orderly public hearing Tuesday night, June 17, residents of Kent and neighboring towns expressed their feelings about a proposed ordinance that would ban wake boating on Lake Waramaug.
The public hearing is to be followed Friday night, June 27, by a 7 p.m. town meeting in Kent Town Hall, 41 Kent Green Blvd. The meeting can be viewed on Zoom, but paper ballots will be cast only by eligible voters present at town hall.
Many residents along the shores of the pristine lake are alarmed by the environmental effect that wake boating is having on the lake, as well as for the safety of those practicing other, more passive, recreation on the water. Lakeside property owners complain of physical damage to their docks and seawalls, as well as about erosion of the shoreline.
The proposed ordinance, recently approved by the Lake Waramaug Authority, would prevent any device that creates larger wakes, including ballast tanks and wake enhancers. It would impose $250 fines for each violation.
The same ordinance must be approved by all three towns surrounding the lake—Warren, Washington and Kent. Kent has the smallest slice of shoreline at 15 percent.
John Amster, who lives in New Preston but who pays taxes in Kent, was first to speak, saying “it is a bad idea” to ban an activity without actual proof that it is damaging the lake. “It won’t end with this vote,” he said of the controversial action. “A proposed ordinance has already been presented to DEEP [the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.]”
Amie McKay agreed. “A ban is not the way,” she asserted. “We should be leaving it to DEEP and look at what other states are recommending. We should work together.”
She added that other aquatic activities are not banned but do have an impact. “Why are we going off a study that didn’t even recommend a ban?” she asked. “There are many other things affecting the lake.”
Karen Bussolini, a resident of South Kent, had a different point of view. She said her family has a reunion each year at another lake that is affected by wake boating. “Every single property along that lake has rocks because the shore has eroded,” she said. “There is constantly suspended materials in the water making it impossible to swim.”
Christopher Spring of 74 Lake Waramaug Road, a member of the lake’s association, said that his concern is for safety. “We don’t use our dock anymore because it is too darn dangerous,” he asserted. He said he has seen people “wiped out” by all kinds of boats. “The important issue is, wake boats are an accident waiting to happen.”
His view was echoed by Jim Hicks who said he had experienced “first-hand the potential danger of enhanced wakes,” having had his own watercraft overturned several times. He was not alarmed for himself, but rather for less skilled boaters and swimmers. “This is not government overreach, but local government at its best, with three towns working together to solve a problem,” he said.
Conservation Commission Chairman Jean Speck said that when the town revised its Plan of Conservation and Development, protecting natural resources ranked number one in residents’ wishes.
But resident Matt Starr said it is not only wake boats that create damage to the lake and worried that the ordinance “would be the beginning of the end of powerboating on Waramaug.”
“I care greatly about the condition of the lake,” he said, “and I believe the shoreline should be protected, but the early morning fishing boats create terrible wakes. Somewhere there should be a discussion about shoreline [buffers] to protect the shore. No one is enforcing anything.”
Several persons mentioned the size of the lake, noting that it is too narrow to provide sufficient buffers for the shoreline. Bruce Birenboim, Washington, a member of the Lake Waramaug Coalition to Ban Wake Surfing, said the group’s view is based “on science and facts and not emotions.”
“This report establishes the damages wakes do to the environment,” he said. “I challenge anyone to read opposing science.”
He said the proposed compromise would create a 200-foot deep perimeter that would be used for every other kind of recreation. “I don’t see that as a compromise or neighborly thing to do,” he concluded.
Kelly Williams, another coalition member, referred to the “large pool of phosphate sequestered at the bottom of the lake—where it should stay.”
Waramaug was rescued in the 1970s from algae blooms that were made worse by the release of phosphates in the water, a condition that has been corrected at great expense and effort.
