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With boating season on the horizon, members of one Clay County neighborhood are petitioning for extra safety measures in the area where their families enjoy the water. Their request highlights the state of North Carolina's relative lack of regulations governing boat traffic near docks and piers.
During their monthly meeting on April 1, the Clay County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution that asks the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to conduct an assessment of the waters off McCracken Point on Lake Chatuge, near the high bridge on Hwy. 175. Residents of the community hope this is the first step toward the area being designated a "marked swim zone" to prevent boats from encroaching near docks where their families swim and participate in other activities. It's been a recurring issue in Clay County and across the state, pitting many residents' desire for safety against boaters' rights to enjoy recreation on the water.
"As more and more development comes, more and more people want either protection or privacy and they are all pushing their counties to apply," said Betsy Haywood, Water Safety Rulemaking Coordinator for NCWRC. "We always will do an assessment if we're requested to, but the commission does not approve all of these. We have to balance the needs for safety against the rights for people to enjoy these waters — because they're public trust waters — at unregulated speed whenever possible, because no one wants to have to putt-putt all over an entire lake that's a no wake zone."
An all-time high of 378,142 boats were registered with the wildlife commission in 2018, the last year the agency reported the numbers. Meanwhile, Haywood said the amount of requests for assessments spiked exponentially around the same time. "In 2019, suddenly the amount burgeoned to 25 requests in one year, which was a huge increase," Haywood said. "Usually it's no more than eight or nine." William Dillon spoke to the Clay County Board of Commissioners on behalf of the group of McCracken Point residents, several of whom attended the meeting.
Their concerns stem from the fact that there is no North Carolina statute that establishes no wake zones for boats around docks and piers. "You're not the first people that have come and requested this and in my opinion you won't be the last," Commissioner Dwight Penland said. "And I certainly hope you don't have any problem getting it accomplished with the wildlife commission."
A no wake zone is an area within which vessels are required to travel at idling speed — slow speed that creates no appreciable wake. North Carolina General Statute §75A-15 authorizes the NCWRC to establish water safety rules solely in the interest of mitigating water safety hazards. "In Georgia, the rule is that you have to stay 100 feet away from any dock or other vessel," Dillon said. "In North Carolina, we don't have a specific rule, hence the need for this barrier for safety."
The North Carolina Vessel Operator's Guide states, "No person shall operate a personal watercraft on the waters of this state at greater than no-wake speed within 100 feet of an anchored or moored vessel, a dock, pier, swim float, marked swimming area, swimmers, surfers, persons engaged angling or any manually operated propelled vessel — except within 50 feet in a narrow channel." However, Haywood confirmed what the agency's website states — the language is merely a guideline not backed by any overarching law when it comes to boats near docks and piers.
"As far as a boat goes, yes, there are best practices for slowing down close to people's piers, but it's not in law," Haywood said. "I imagine someone would have to petition, not us, but the legislature to put that into statute." North Carolina boating fatalities reached a 20-year high of 30 in 2018, before falling back to 14 in 2019. The numbers for 2020 have not yet been released. Dillon said he's observed a dramatic spike in boat traffic on Lake Chatuge in recent years. He recounted a pair of close calls experienced by members of his neighborhood just last year. According to him, one instance during the summer featured a 32-foot boat that created a 3 1/2-foot wake.
It washed one woman out of her chair on the dock and could have easily knocked her mother, who was also there at the time, into the water. Dillon also had a close call of his own a few months later in September. "What we're seeing is large vessels and wake boats coming closer and closer to the areas where we and our children and grandchildren like to swim," Dillon said. "I have this habit where I run down the dock and jump in the water.
"One day, when I came up, there was a boat that was less than 10 feet away from me and it was pulling a water skier that was even closer to me than that. I recognize that I wasn't looking for a boat when I ran down the dock and dived into the water, but that's an unsafe situation that could've resulted in a fatality had the timing been just a little bit different."
The NCWRC grants permission for specific no wake zones to be established under certain circumstances, but it can be an uphill fight. The process can take 8-10 months and must be requested by county commissioners rather than private individuals. Several no wake zones have been established in waters off the shores of Clay County, including one at McCracken Cove, inside McCracken Point. Others include the boat ramp at Ho Hum Campground, Chatuge Cove Marina, and the peninsula at Clay County Recreational Park. In each of those cases, the commission established a 50-yard, 150 feet, no wake zone.
There is also the opportunity for a county or municipality to request the designation of a marked swim zone, like the one sought for McCracken Point. This type of area can be up to 5,000 square feet. Like a no wake zone, anyone requesting one must demonstrate that an area meets certain statutory criteria. It is typically not granted as an added safety measure around private docks. "We've got to meet those statutory criteria," Haywood said. "It will be something like a history of accidents, a fuel dock that would create a hazard, narrow or shallow cove, diminished sight lines, underwater obstructions, but not water skiing and not docks sticking out in the water, because people have the right to water ski out there."
A marked swim zone is a restricted area where no vessel is allowed entry. If such a zone is granted at McCracken Point, residents within the designated area would not be eligible to use their own docks for boating. Cost is yet another issue, as Haywood said the NCWRC does not pay for the purchase, placement and maintenance of a marked swim zone. Those expenses typically fall to the county government.
However, Clay County Administrator Betty Bradley said the county will not pay for installation or maintenance of any buoys, ropes or anchors for a marked swim zone. "We had another situation approximately a year or year and a half ago in another cove and the commissioners told them up front, 'No, the county cannot be responsible for that,' Bradley said. "And in that particular cove, which was Dayton Cove, they did not get approved for a no wake zone in that area. It's my understanding that, if it had been approved, the homeowners association was going to get together and cover that."
Depending on the exact boundaries of any proposed marked swim zone, it could be disqualified long before cost ever becomes an issue. Sgt. Mickey Carpenter covers Clay, Cherokee and Macon counties for the NCWRC Law Enforcement Division. He said a marked swim zone cannot exist on a main channel of a lake. "If it goes into a cove, then we can do it, but if it's in the main waterway with high boating traffic, that's not feasible," Carpenter said. "If it's a point in a cove, it may be eligible, but if it's a point that goes into a channel, we probably wouldn't be able to make it happen."
The NCWRC assessment is not the final word in the process. County governments can still submit an application to the NCWRC, regardless of the assessment's recommendation. The final decision is made by the agency's board. However, Clay County has historically abided by the assessment. "I would present it to the board of commissioners and they'd have to make a decision on that," Bradley said. "I don't know of any instance where it's gone further when the assessment has said it's not feasible to have that."