Wake enforcement

[sagmanaur]

Just thought I would pass this on:

There has been some noise forming in the Portland area (Willamette River) about putting regulations on wakes created by boats. The homeowners on the river are complaining about the wake size creating dock damage and accelerating errosion on their property.
I got in on the topic just recently, but they had an open forum on it this past Tuesday with the Oregon Marine Board involved. They had tests performed on the river with a "normal" boat, a wakeboard boat, and with a wakeboard boat with ballast. They had wake measuring equipment and had drive by's at different speeds and straight line vs. erratic lines.
The preliminary findings came out that there wasn't much difference in the wake size between the 3 boats at speed, however there was a significant difference when boats were at "plowing" speed 5-15 MPH (Surfing speed), and when there were multiple boats driving erratically (tubers).
If you would like to read more about it, it is on www.pdxwake.com

http://www.pdxwakesnow.com/viewtopic...aeeb30c0ebbe14

This could potentially have an impact on our beloved sport, so get involved early if you hear about this problem in your area. Luckily we have a few individuals that jumped in on this swiftly and hopefully quenched the rumblings.

Later,

Steve

[wannabewakeboarder]

Bummer, I heard of LF and a few other crews going on that river for riding and some photo shoots, I think theres some pictures from a shoot there in Wakeboarding Mag and The Standard.

[illiniboarder88]

Just my humble opinion, but I don't think property owners on public waterways have the right to complain about boat traffic. When you choose to live there, you take the good with the bad. Build a dock that can withstand some waves. Put in a sea wall of some sort to control your erosion. It seems to me that laws and ordinances are supposed to benefit the population at large. Limiting activities on a public water way only benefits the few living on the waterway, not the public at large. Private lakes, on the other hand, are a different story. I don't like the wake restrictions there either, but at least in those situations you know going in that there is a private governing body. sorry for the rant

[Greg Mallek]

Just my humble opinion, but I don't think property owners on public waterways have the right to complain about boat traffic. When you choose to live there, you take the good with the bad. Build a dock that can withstand some waves. Put in a sea wall of some sort to control your erosion. It seems to me that laws and ordinances are supposed to benefit the population at large. Limiting activities on a public water way only benefits the few living on the waterway, not the public at large. Private lakes, on the other hand, are a different story. I don't like the wake restrictions there either, but at least in those situations you know going in that there is a private governing body. sorry for the rant

Well said! I live in a waterfront community, and the concirne here is to accual levey damage. The Army corp of Engineers, and Rec 800 govern the Delta levy system in our area. Any property damage is soley upto the homeowners to "Build it smart" based upon where you live. My opinion is that we as water front home owners know the risks when purchacing the property, therfor must take on our own responsibilities.

[G-MONEY]

That's bull-chit.............

Don't build/buy a house a house on the water then.

They need to quit their bitch!ng.......

[Surfdad]

Eddie Brown contacted me before all of this started and I connected him with Ed Sullivan in Ohio. Ed has a ton of experience dealing with regulatory agencies. The big point that Ed S always makes is that Mother Nature is 1,000 times worse than anything that man can do and you need to build appropriately. The guidance the Army Corp of Engineers gives for docks/etc makes them incredibly substantial, but at the same time literally no one builds to that specification.

I don't think that we can ignore the issue of property damage, though. I've always said that THIS issue is what will be the end of our sport long before CO poisioning or prop related injuries.

IMO, we need to be respectful of the concept of "quite enjoyment" of personal property. When folks consider you an irritant, they make noises to regulators to prevent it. Elected officals are responsive to their constituents, especially during election years.

[sagmanaur]

In my opinion it is like the homeowners in a golfing community that complains about golf balls hitting their house. Simply put, buy a house in a different community.
I will keep you guys posted.

Steve

[chpthril]

Like buying a house near the airport, and then b!tch about the noise

[Carter13]

Don't foget about train tracks .

[Surfdad]

aahhhhhh...the airports. In California, there is a HUGE amount of activity to create and enforce noise restrictions to include things like airport curfews. The FAA has a 141 page document that spells out land use/development around airports:

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...edia/III.B.pdf

AOPA talks about being proactive by reducing the noise footprint of planes:

http://www.aopa.org/pilot/features/2001/noise0108.html

I still think we just need to be good neighbors, realize that these folks have an issue and work with it. I certainly don't think taking the attitude of "pound sand" serves anyone well.

What sorts of things can we do to be seen as responsible and an asset to local communities?

[Carter13]

Good luck trying to be looked at as an asset here on the Willamette. It will be like trying to pull teeth. These people that live on the river are old school and are tired of the traffic. Don't be surprised if they don't at least get the surfing speeds banned in the near future.
As for the Army Corps of Engineers, I can tell you I deal with them in my day to day work and they mean business. They have the authority to make any decisions they damn well please and the civilians as well as local entities have to abide to their decision. So everyone that surfs better hope that the Corps doesn't see surfing as a negitive to the waterways because we just aren't talking about erosion issues but also Salmon and other fish species issues. The Corps is really serious about sedimentation is the US waterways because they feel it inhibits the spawning of fish.
Lakes are a whole different story because we are not talking about spawning runs.

[illiniboarder88]

The best leg to stand on for people wanting to do away with surfing is enforcing the weight capacities on boats. They simply can't ban boats from not being on plane. I guess they could ban surfing, but that seems a bit ridiculous.

[Carter13]

Just to give you an idea I work for a local city entity and I am responsible for shoreline permits within the city. My department is wanting to remove two
24" culverts that are 22 feet in length out of a channel that merges into a creek. The project is for the removal of fish barriers. I just talked to the Corp on Wednesday and they told me that I would need to fill out another permit for a cofferdam that consisted of sandbags and a plastic liner. After talking to them they said they would wave the permit if we used water filled bags.
The channel in question is 22' wide and only about 8" deep during the winter. During summer it is about 18' wide and 2" deep. They said they wanted to reduce the chance for sedimentation in the creek. This creek is on the 403D list which basically means that it is in really bad shape and there were also Salminoids that were there years ago, hence the Salmon issue here in the Northwest.
The Willamette is a large Salmon run and when I am running up against this kind of rules and regulations with the Army on a small project like this I can only imagine what they have in store for the future of boating along the rivers here.

[dogbert]

As an owner of a waterfront home, I do see the point of the damage issue. There's a big difference between boating responsibly and irresponsibly. I would not advocate banning based on wake, but I would support requiring a minimum distance between the shoreline and the boat. A wake can be pretty destructive if, as the study showed, it's either really big (at slow speeds) or very erratic and in close proximity to my dock.

When we wakesurf, we tend to go into the middle of the lake or away from areas where there are docks and other boats.

Just my

[Surfdad]

Yeah, I like dogberts approach...go where you aren't viewed as a nuisance.

Carter13, I saw a blurb last night on the TV about the salmon run here in Northern California...I can't remember the actual numbers but the report indicated something like the last count in 2005 had a million some odd salmon and that the projection for this year was 56,000. The drop was so devastating that the authorities plan to ban all salmon fishing this year. Is that part of the problem?