To the Editor:

I spent a beautiful day this past weekend visiting with residents living on Harvey’s Lake, and see why few places in Vermont better embody the purpose of our public waters than Harvey’s.

It is a place where generations have learned to swim, paddle, fish, waterski, watch loons raise their young, and introduce grandchildren to the quiet pleasures of a Vermont summer. Families have returned here for decades because Harvey’s has remained something increasingly rare: a healthy, accessible, family lake whose greatest attraction is not what has changed, but what has endured through generations.

Protecting places like Harvey’s was precisely the goal of Vermont’s recently adopted Use of Public Waters Rules about which I have written extensively. After years of scientific study, public meetings, and thousands of comments, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) developed one of the nation’s most thoughtful approaches to regulating wakesports. Rather than asking whether wake-surfing should be allowed everywhere or nowhere, the rules asked a more practical question: Which lakes can safely and sustainably accommodate the specific activities?

That question deserves enormous credit.

The answer depends not only on depth, but on available operating space, shoreline setbacks, and the ability of different users to enjoy the same lake safely. As a result, 13 Vermont lakes were removed from wakesports eligibility because they no longer met the standards established by the new regulations. The rules recognized an important principle: every lake is different, and every lake deserves to be evaluated on its own characteristics. That is sound science and sound public policy and it’s exactly the reason that the rule was adopted and passed by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR).

This brings us to Harvey’s Lake. According to DEC’s own mapping, Harvey’s contains approximately 116.5 acres of water meeting the minimum depth and shoreline setback requirements. On paper, that allows the lake to remain on the approved list (since the allowable area is technically greater than 100 acres), but lakes are not experienced on paper, and anyone who has been to Harvey’s Lake or looked at Harvey’s bathymetric map immediately notices what makes the lake unique. The designated wakesports area narrows dramatically at both the north and south ends. Those narrow sections contribute acreage, yet they provide no practical operating room at all. When the state’s required 3,000-foot operating corridor is overlaid on the Department’s own map, the corridor cannot be contained within the designated wakesports zone. Wakesports should not be allowed on Harvey’s Lake for all of the exact same reasons those 13 other lakes and ponds were protected by the new rule.

The DEC’s regulations recognize the importance of “shape normalization,” which means that the geometry of a lake truly matters to this process. A lake’s suitability cannot be determined by acreage alone when the usable water is constrained by its physical shape. Harvey’s unusual configuration has been documented repeatedly in maps, engineering analyses, public comments and legal submissions to the DEC.

The Harvey’s Lake Association deserves recognition and accolades for its impressive stewardship. For decades it has partnered with state agencies, the Town of Barnet, Vermont Fish and Wildlife, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, and numerous conservation organizations to protect the health of the Lake’s ecosystem. Its volunteers have invested countless hours and private resources protecting water quality, monitoring wildlife, improving watershed management, maintaining invasive-species defenses, and educating the boating public. Harvey’s healthy condition today is the product of sustained community stewardship working hand in hand with state agencies. That history is important because this discussion is not about winners and losers but is about whether the regulations should accomplish the very purpose for which they were written.

The Association is not asking the Department to rewrite the rules, but is asking the Department to finish applying them. Harvey’s unique shape prevents the required wakesports operating corridor from existing within the eligible area, then consistency requires the same conclusion reached for other lakes. After applying shape normalization and the Department’s own standards, Harvey’s no longer qualifies as having an eligible wakesports zone.

The DEC has already demonstrated the willingness to make difficult decisions in the interest of Vermont’s lakes. Harvey’s deserves the benefit of that same careful review.

Future generations will not judge today’s decisions by the number of wakeboats Vermont accommodated, but will judge them and us by whether we protected the lakes that make Vermont unique.