Panel Weighs Water Ski Ban on Meadows
By Howard Weiss-Tisman, Brattleboro Reformer, Vt.
Jul. 29–BRATTLEBORO — A proposed ban on water skiing on the Retreat Meadows will be the focus of a public hearing scheduled for tonight by the Vermont Water Resources Panel.
The four-member panel, which considers changes to the state’s rules on how public waters are managed, will hold the hearing at 7 p.m. in the multipurpose room at Brattleboro Area Middle School.
Critics and supporters of the proposed rule will be allowed to submit written testimony until Sept. 5, but the Tuesday meeting in Brattleboro will be the only opportunity to come before the citizen’s panel to talk about banning water skiing on the Retreat Meadows.
“This is an opportunity to have direct contact with the rule-making body,” said Mike Hebert of Vernon, a member of the Water Resources panel. “If you are a fisherman or a kayaker, or anyone who has an interest in the Retreat Meadows at all, this is the time to come out and express your view.”
The Water Resources panel, along with the Land Use panel, make up the Natural Resources Board, which was created in February 2005 by the Legislature.
The governor appoints the nine Natural Resources Board members.
The Tuesday meeting was called to consider a petition by Brattleboro resident Laurie Callahan to ban water skiing in an approximately 55 acre area of the West River known as the Retreat Meadows.
Callahan filed her petition with the board after a slalom water skiing course
was set up in late April 2007 and used for the following few months.
While water skiers have traditionally used the deeper Connecticut River, Callahan said, motor boats pulling water skiers in the Retreat Meadows would have a severe impact on the traditional quiet water uses in the area, she added.
“Most visitors to or recreational users of the Retreat Meadows have enjoyed and become accustomed to the relative quietness of the basin,” Callahan wrote in her petition. “Wake-producing motorized activity, exemplified by the water skiing activity in 2007, significantly changes that traditional expectation and diminishes that traditional quiet enjoyment.”
Callahan also wrote that the activity would disturb wildlife and help spread invasive aquatic species by chopping up and distributing parts of the invasive plants.
“This would essentially work against the efforts of the invasive aquatic plant management project,” she wrote. “The shallow depth and small size of the Retreat Meadows area makes it vulnerable to the impacts of motorized boat wakes. For many, last year’s water skiing use of the Retreat Meadows is a matter of concern for a number of reasons.”
The panel on Tuesday is also expected to consider clarifying the no-wake rule, which is used to regulate activity on eight water bodies in the state, including Somerset Reservoir in Windham County.
John Hasen, general counsel for the Natural Resources Board, said the state rule that prohibits any wake is unenforceable, and the panel is going to instead change the term to “no disturbing wake.”
“A duck will create a wake,” said Hasen. “This will give us a more realistic definition. You can’t do anything on the water without creating a wake.”
After the Sept. 5 deadline for written testimony, Hasen said the panel will consider the evidence and make a recommendation to the Legislative Rules Committee.
That committee, as well, will present an opportunity for the public to comment on the new rule.
If the ban on water skiing is adopted it will go into effect next year.
For more information about the proposed rules, and about how to submit written testimony go to the panels’ Web site at: www.nrb.state.vt.us/wrp/.
Howard Weiss-Tisman can be reached at hwtisman@reform-er.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 279.
—–
To see more of the Brattleboro Reformer or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.reformer.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, Brattleboro Reformer, Vt.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.