Wake boats — nothing like ski boats

Recreating humans have come up with a new way to thrill ourselves at the expense of water environments by creating artificial waves high enough for surfing behind a boat on inland watercourses (in addition to oceans) without being attached to a tow rope, unlike traditional water skiing. Sounds innocuous, right? It’s not.

The Lakeville Journal has done a yeoman’s job covering the subject of wake boating on Lake Waramaug, which borders the towns of Kent, Washington, and Warren but “recreational wakes” concern all inland watercourses too, especially in the NorthwestCorner where we have a unique strain of hydrilla infestations that permanently endanger the health of all inland lakes and rivers.

Wake boats are a direct conduit for invasives because their fundamental architecture is unlike anything seen in sports boating before. Wake boats employ internal ballast systems and wake-forming attachments like wake plates and wedges to shape waves that are typically 3-4 feet high. The ballasts are designed to take up water and weigh down the boat’s stern much deeper into the water than a ski boat, while raising the bow far above the water line, making it difficult to see other boats/swimmers ahead. Ballasts can retain up to 23 gallons of water inside the ballasts and bilge even after being drained with electric pumps. Because ballasts are internal systems, no physical inspections are possible and sanitation must be extremely thorough using water with temperatures above 140 F. (This alone will require new inspection infrastructure at every lake since the transport of contaminated water has already been known to spread Eurasian watermilfoil, spiny water flea, and zebra mussels between waterbodies. And invasives are just one concern.

Traditional water skiing boats skim the water’s surface, create relatively superficial waves with little energy and do not destroy fragile lake ecosystems. But wake boats — new on the scene since 2010 — are specifically designed to displace huge amounts of water and sales have recently surged. As usual, the technology is in the field far in advance of our understanding its potential consequences.

Over 300 lakes in the country have banned or limited wake surfing; Wisconsin is in the process of passing statewide ordinances as is Vermont — all based on environmental concerns.

In a detailed report entitled “The Effects of Wake Boats on Lake Ecosystem Health: A Literature Review” by the environmental group “Wisconsin’s Green Fire, Voices for Conservation” in 2024, they note serious environmental damage from wake boating besides invasives:

Wake boats produce wakes that are 2–3 times larger than motorized non-wake boats and transfer up to 12 times more power to shorelines, requiring more than 600 feet to dissipate.

Armoring shorelines with riprap to repair/reduce erosion has high environmental/financial costs, reducing biodiversity/habitat quality, exacerbating invasive issues, and increasing nutrient runoff into lakes.

Recreational wakes, propeller turbulence, and direct damage from deep hulls and propellers can disturb/destroy aquatic plant communities, worsening erosion and habitat loss.

Native aquatic plants help secure shorelines and lake bottoms and are essential cornerstones of food webs and fish reproduction.

Enhanced wakes, noise levels, and turbulence can negatively impact wildlife, including near-shore nesting birds and fish.

Wake boats can resuspend lake sediments at deeper depths than other watercraft, reducing water quality and clarity. The resuspension of lake sediment can also reintroduce stored and previously inaccessible phosphorus back into the water column, fueling algal growth. The latter is of particular concern to Lake Waramaug, which was the country’s first whole-lake, non-chemical field experiment in algal remediation, partly funded by the U.S. EPA. In 1975, a group of concerned citizens formed the Lake Waramaug Task Force — now the Lake Waramaug Conservancy —to address the pea-soup-like conditions of the lake’s water quality caused by intense algae blooms from phosphorus/nutrient accumulation in lake sediment from nearby dairy farms, old septic systems, and general lawn/upland run-off.

Over the last 50 years, via innovative limnology designs, education, in-lake zooplankton farms (zooplankton eats algae), precise year-to-year monitoring/reporting and many millions of dollars from a supportive community, the group was able to steadily increase water clarity from zero in 1968 when the lake was in a state of quickening eutrophication to depths of 19 feet by 2019. However, since 2020 that success has backtracked somewhat and coincides with the increase in wake boats (estimated to be 40+ now). But since (in science parlance) ‘correlation does not equal causation,’ a detailed study was commissioned by the Interlocal Commission via the LW Task Force and funded by the three towns. Terra Vigilis Environmental Services, a nationally recognized science/engineering group with a focus on protecting infrastructure and environmental ecosystems, was commissioned. Their work took months to complete and included in-depth analysis during several seasons at numerous locations, supported by underwater and aerial drone technology. They created two highly detailed/critical analysis reports for the community that can be seen at www.lakewaramaug.org. The reports are decisive studies in underwater sediment disturbance as deep as 26 feet from the wake boat they employed in “normal use” conditions.

If ever there was a lake with scientific documentation to eschew wake surfing, Lake Waramaug — too small, narrow, shallow, and studied — is it. In the recent information meetings at town halls in the three towns, lakeside residents have reported significant shoreline erosion (repaired at private expense), plus damage to docks and moored boats. People report not sitting on their own docks on weekends due to waves rocking and crashing over them. There was one report of a child being slammed into shoreline rocks and numerous reports of capsized kayakers. (For perspective, Lake Tahoe, at 120,000 acres, has a 600 feet buffer for wake boats versus Lake Waramaug’s 640 acres with an unenforced voluntary 200 feet buffer for all boats.)

Referendums are scheduled in the three towns on July 31 to vote on a proposed ordinance put forth by The Lake Waramaug Authority and endorsed by numerous environmental groups, including the Protect Lake Waramaug Coalition. (Check town websites for times and to read the ordinance.) It’s a common sense proposal that bans wake surfing, not boats. It’s been reviewed, edited, and approved by the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), which has general jurisdiction over watercourses but partners with municipalities in which they are located.

Polluting for pleasure by a handful of wealthy residents, especially regarding dangerous whole-lake algae blooms, cannot be allowed to undo what the Lake Waramaug community has spent five decades to fix. Time for all voters to show up and protect the Commonweal. This is coming to a lake near you soon.

B. Blake Levitt is a science journalist who writes about how technology impacts biology. She is the Communications Director for The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council and lives in Warren.