Long Lake adjusts wake restriction levels

“The fact is that we are under no-wake often, several times a year, and that’s not the way the no-wake restrictions are supposed to work,” council member John Dyvik said. “Three inches, I don’t believe will make much of a difference on the lake shore owners but will make a big difference on how often the lake is closed down and I think that is bad for Long Lake and bad for our local businesses to be shutdown sometimes for a extended period of time, several times a year, when most lakes have a no-wake restriction that goes into effect once every five years.”

Resident Jane Davidson spoke against raising the level three inches.

“When the no-wake goes into effect, I always breath as a lake owner a sigh of relief,” she said. “I would urge great caution about changing the ordinance.”

The council also approved changing the definition in the ordinance of watercraft, which had brand references, to the state statute of watercraft.

Those changes were prompted earlier this spring when the lake went into slow-no wake restrictions and they found out that the previous no-wake restriction were no longer enforceable.

According to city staff, Long Lake and Orono city councils adopted slow-no wake restrictions in their respective city codes governing Long Lake in 2014, which stated that no person shall operate a watercraft at greater than slow-no wake speeds whenever the water level of the lake exceeds 945.0 feet and remained at that level for at least three consecutive days.

In 2017, the city of Long Lake adopted a new code regarding hours of operation of personal watercraft (jet skis) on the lake.

Long Lake communicated those changes to Orono and Orono implemented a similar update. When Orono implemented those changes, the city inadvertently deleted the Long Lake specific slow-no wake ordinance language from their code, rendering Long Lake’s slow-no wake ordinance unenforceable for the time being.

That was situation was discovered on Monday, May 9 and the city has been in contact with Orono to call awareness to the situation.

Long Lake city clerk Jeanette Moeller said the city of Long Lake will be in touch with Orono about the recent update to Long Lake’s ordinance in hopes that they would adopt a similar ordinance so that a slow-no wake restriction can be enforced on Long Lake if it goes into effect.