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Common Sense, Enforcement Needed, Not New Boating Laws

February 06, 2008 -
As the temperature plummeted, our thoughts turned to spring when we emerge from our cabins to frolic in Maine's great outdoors, including our beautiful lakes and rivers. Appropriately, in the midst of chilling budget figures, some legislators turned their attention to boating issues. Those issues are not without controversy.

On one of the few January days when it didn't snow, boating enthusiasts filled Room 205 at the State House for hearings on a half-dozen bills before the Legislature's Inland Fisheries & Wildlife Committee. As I testified on behalf of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, I appreciated the opportunity to think about something other than the seven feet of snow that has blanketed my home this winter, the $3,000 we're spending on oil, the way my arthritis seems to kick up on these damp days.

I hobbled into the hearing on an arthritic ankle and plopped down beside a lobbyist for the boating industry. Looking around the room, I saw a lot of "real people" - the folks who rally to Augusta on occasion to express themselves directly to legislators. It's always a good day - and an entertaining one - when these folks show up. And they did not disappoint on this day.

Among the bills up for discussion were proposals to require a mandatory boating course, prohibit kids from operating motor boats at night and limit horsepower on two western Maine lakes. Yes, I know you thought legislators this session were concentrating on limiting your burdens of government, not increasing them. Surprise! I can only plead on their behalf that there's a lot of time to fill and it's so easy to find a problem for a solution.

OK, we do have some problems out there on the water, but the solutions in these bills are the wrong ones. In fact, solutions are already available for every problem that was raised in this public hearing.

You want to educate boaters about how to behave on the water? Forcing boaters to take an expensive and time-consuming course is not the answer. But there are plenty of opportunities to advertise and promote those rules of the water. Most of the rules involve simple courtesy and common sense. I suggested - because the problems are concentrated on congested waters in southern Maine - that the volunteers who inspect boats for invasive plants also hand out a card listing the rules of the water.

You want more enforcement? Certainly. But don't depend on the four dozen wardens who are on duty statewide at any give time. Municipal police and sheriffs have the authority to enforce boating laws. If you have a problem in your community, call on them for help. You also can hire a harbormaster to enforce the laws on your local lakes. Most of the problems discussed at the hearing could be solved if the current law prohibiting wakes within 200 feet of shore was enforced.

The good folks from Long Lake, where an allegedly drunken boater in a boat with twin 450-horsepower motors ran over and killed two people last year, didn't seem to be aware that the solution they sought at the Legislature - horsepower limits on their lakes - already was available to them without enacting a new law. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has authority to limit horsepower on any inland water, for reasons of safety, when pedtioned by 150 citizens of the state.

Solutions already are available at the community level for every problem that is occurring on the water in Maine. Education is important. But enforcement of existing laws is crucial. Punish bad behavior, but don't punish all of us for the few who behave badly. Which brings me to the bill that was most distressing. I have seen this phenomenon before.

When adults behave badly, we punish the kids. Because a 45-year-old man killed two people with his boat in a nighttime accident, we got a bill prohibiting kids from operating motor boats at night. I urged the committee to do nothing that discourages young people from boating and fishing - and to avoid placing more barriers to getting people of all ages outdoors.

The mandatory boating course has a lot of legislative support, but perhaps the comment of one legislator may turn the tide. He explained that nonresident users and renters of boats would not be required to take the boating course, because that requirement "would be too onerous to tourists.' Of course. And it would be too onerous to Mainers, too.

George Smith is executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine. He lives in Mount Vernon.

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