St. Germain town board to receive, review draft wakeboat ordinance

During a meeting of the St. Germain town board on Thursday, Oct. 24, those in attendance received an update on the status of a proposed ordinance to control enhanced boat-wakes on town lakes.

“The reason I put it on (the agenda) is that I had a few people ask me why the board isn’t going to do anything,” said town chairman Tom Christensen. “The board hasn’t decided to do anything or not do anything. So I thought at least we should have an update from Patric, from the lakes committee, and everybody will be on the same page again.”

Town supervisor Patric Niggemeier was appointed as the chairman of the St. Germain lakes committee after being elected to office in April.

“The committee has decided to go forth with putting together a draft enhanced-wake ordinance to bring to the town board to vote on it to make it an ordinance,” Niggemeier said. 

“I want it to be clear: this is not a boat ban,” he added. “This is an ordinance to help combat enhanced wakes. Everything is still in the early stages right now. Nothing is finalized.”

“If anyone has any questions, I encourage all of you to email me,” Niggemeier said. “I encourage everybody to come to our lakes committee meetings.”

The Lakeland Times asked Niggemeier for a broadstrokes-summary of the draft ordinance.

“We are still working on the confines of what the ordinance is going to be,” Niggemeier answered. “But it’s going to be specifications — but included to — distance from shoreline: a certain footage of depth; use of certain accessories a boat might have to create an enhanced wake, and so on. Beyond that, I really couldn’t give you much more information at this time.”

Bob Schell, a member of the lakes committee, was also in attendance at Thursday’s meeting.

“I think we should add that there was a kind of a meeting-type thing that happened over the summer where each lake was to go back and poll their property-owners to see where they stood on this,” Schell explained. “As I understand it, four of the five main lakes in St. Germain voted — whether it be the districts or the associations — to proceed.”

“That’s why this is proceeding,” he said. “It’s not like it’s something that came out of the blue. It’s something that was kind of a groundswell between the property-owners on the lakes and their associations or their districts.” 

“And, to clarify, you only polled property-owners on lakes?” asked town supervisor Kalisa Mortag. “No one else in town?”

“That’s right,” Schell answered. “The associations and the districts.”

Schell addressed a meeting of the lakes committee on May 16 and told those in attendance several regional municipalities have enacted ordinances in the recent past, including Winchester and Newbold. At the time, he said, Lake Tomahawk and Cloverland had both submitted draft ordinances to the state Department of Natural Resources for review.

“Several other Vilas towns are doing it,” Schell said. “And I understand the (Lac duFlambeau) Tribe (of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians) has totally outlawed it, and they put in some tough enforcement. They said — I think — that they’re going to impound vehicles and stuff like that as fines. They’re not going to mess around.”

“So, it’s coming folks,” he said. “And that’s what this committee has been talking about for three years. We were waiting for the groundswell to hit. Well, it’s hitting; right now. And it’s something we should talk about.”

“The boats aren’t banned,” Schell explained in the May meeting, describing a legal technicality. He said what would be banned would be: “The act of creating a big wake. You can’t ban a boat from a lake because of the Public Trust Doctrine. But what you’re doing is putting in ordinances to prevent enhanced wake. In other words, somebody can have a wake-boat out there without a ballast in it. They can probably water-ski behind it. As long as they’re not performing the enhanced-wake function, they’ll be legal.”

“But once they start moving that stern down and putting ballast in their tanks, it’ll be illegal,” he said.

Schell said the committee worked in consultation with retired Presque Isle attorney Richard Phillips in developing its draft.

“Richard really knows his stuff,” Schell told the lakes committee.

“Richard has written these ordinances for all these towns, which are pretty much the same,” Schell explained. “A lot of people were worried that there would be a patchwork of these things; that everything would be different; it would cause a problem. But pretty much all of these ordinances have been the same.”

The Times asked Niggemeier whether he had a target date for the draft to be presented to the town board.

“My goal is to present it absolutely no later than February,” he said, “But I’m hopeful it might be ready within the next few months. We’re still taking input from the lake associations and districts to see if there’s anything they want added or amended.”