Views & Observations on Lake Beulah Wake Surfing

By Tom VanDenBogart, President

Educating myself on this issue for the past 4-5 years, I have learned so, so much. The one thing certain to me today as I write this letter – Wake Surfing is causing damage to our lake, its vegetation and its marl bottom! We now have secured a wake surf boat for conducting testing to better understand the effects of wake-enhanced surfing to our lake. We have incorporated divers (retired firefighters) who live in our community and share the same love for our lakes. They manage the park at Booth Lake, another lake where this topic is very controversial.

We have done comparisons of wake surf boats in surf mode to many other types of boats varying in high engine power and size. The wake surf boat is the only type boat notably showing disturbance down to 20 – 30 feet in depth. The scuba divers share their experiences of being tossed around and even sucked off the bottom of the lake at those depths. I have witnessed entire plants that have been dislodged from the lake floor and floating on the surface with roots still attached. Please mark your calendars to come hear a panel discussion with these divers as they talk about their personal observations. We will share our learning too. The informational session will be held on August 23rd from 9-11 at the East Troy Community Center. Please join us to see why this is such a big issue. We are one voice that is standing up and saying “wait a second, this is wrong!”. We want you and others to do the same! This lake is all of ours and our future generations. We need to stand up for them and everyone that enjoys Lake Beulah.

There are now more than 400 lakes in Wisconsin that have banned the sport of wake-surfing. Many more bans are in the works including our neighbor lakes of Whitewater Lake and Booth Lake. We have conducted local surveys, and results show 70% want to see a ban or strong restrictions. Yet the town has taken NO action. We need your help to put pressure on them to take action.

The wake boat industry is dumping lots of money into hiring lobbyists and marketing firms, continuing to put out articles and information in support of wake surfing while denying any impacts at all. They partner with groups like the Beulah Responsible Boaters (BRB) group on our own Lake Beulah as to what language to use in their communications. I feel like Erin Brockovich knowing the real damage and the cause but up against BIG BIG money and lobbyists who will say or do anything to cover up the truth. Their tactics are to delay, put out false reports and discredit any science that challenges their products.

Analogous is what we saw decades ago with the smoking industry. Big money did what they could to fight the data(truth) in the interest of profits to keep cigarettes on the market. And there is a community of wake surfers out there that deny every stitch of data we generate in support of showing the damage caused in their sport. So as we gather data today, it is not to show them what damage they are doing to our lake, because they will never believe it.

I equate it to trying to convince a cigarette smoker that smoking causes cancer – look at the data (they will not). So the testing we are doing is to show YOU that this is a very BIG issue to the health of our lake, causing irreversible damage. We call this death by 10,000 cuts into the bottom of our lake. Standing on the sideline is really not an option. We need to demand a community referendum to get the town board to hear you (all of us collectively) and act to do the right thing for Lake Beulah.

Furthermore, we are opening up the lake to contamination by the Quagga Mussel, as wake boats are not designed to completely drain their ballast tanks. Several gallons (up to 20) travels from lake to lake as boats are moved. As lakes around us put bans in place, more boats are coming from the outside onto our lake making the risk event greater. PLB will have a guest speaker at our fall membership meeting addressing the concern of Quagga Mussels and sharing steps we can take to better protect our lake from these invasive mussels.

The fishermen of Lake Beulah have also sent off alarm bells of what is happening beneath the surface. These fishermen know the lake bottom like the back of their hand and they are reporting the loss of large areas of vegetation on the lake bottom. They are seeing blown out areas with no vegetation remaining, where boats (almost most certainly wake surf boats) have created areas that resemble a moonscape. The result is fish populations are way down and disappearing in some cases. See the article in this newsletter that graphs changes in our fishery over the past decade. I feel the fishermen of Lake Beulah are the canaries in a coal mine – they are seeing the effects and impacts of our lake and we need to listen! Also alarming is the death of floating large soft shell and snapping turtles. I personally have seen 5 dead fifty-plus-year-old turtles along the shoreline this season. What’s changing to cause this?

A study is being planned for this spring to show the impacts of wake boats on fish spawning beds. We will be partnering with organizations like Wisconsin Lakes, the Sierra Club, the Wisconsin Fisheries Society and even National Geographic to compare a lake with a wake surf ban to Lake Beulah which has little to no limitations. We anticipate the data will most likely show Beulah’s recommended 200’ from shore and 20’ depths are way inadequate to protect our fishery spawning areas.

We expect to find wake surfing will destroy the fish beds, eggs and small fry. Further we anticipate that lakes now currently instituting a ban will have returned to normal spawning patterns. Stay tuned! Our local fishermen will be very important in selecting the sites and helping in this important testing. I also want to let the fishermen know PLB hears you and that together we are acting to protect Lake Beulah, while the wake-surfing community seems to ignore their observations.

Still, the wake surfing community is very well connected and united in their messaging provided by the wake surfing industry. There now are members of the Town Board, the Management District and Beulah Responsible Boaters who are part of this messaging. We made a large effort to include all these parties in testing we did on Lake Beulah the week of July 20th.

The day after the testing, a communication went out to wake-surfing communities across Wisconsin with verbiage instructing on how to discredit this research and respond to it. A wake surfer within the network shared the communication with us, and he resides on a lake 64 miles from Lake Beulah.

I don’t think PLB should be accused of dividing our lake community. For me it is all about the data and doing the right thing to Protect Lake Beulah. Some of the wake surfers on our lake have made it political and look for every opportunity to discredit PLB. Don’t believe the rhetoric being created by the wake industry and those in our community who support it.

As I leave the board of PLB, I have complete confidence the passion of the new board to do the right thing for the lake will, in the end prevail. Please continue to support PLB as it continues to do the job of protecting the beautiful resource we all love – Lake Beulah. I hope to see you on the lake and at future PLB membership meetings.

One last all so important message. The elected officials that manage Lake Beulah and the town are very crucial leaders! Please hold them accountable and when elections occur, be sure to vote and elect candidates that have the best interest of Lake Beulah at heart. PLB will sponsor those candidates we feel will support our mission of protecting the lake. Watch for our endorsements and announcement of these important races!