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Lake noise
To the editor:
Lake noise shouldn't be of the level that makes you want to put on industrial ear protection, like needed on the airport runway or when riding 1200 hp, no muffler airboat in the Florida Everglades. Yet, this Saturday there was a speedboat on the lakes for more than an hour that would compete with the loudest of these "feel-it-in-your-bones" noise sources. To what end? Probably early deafness for the operator or anyone within a couple hundred feet.
That particular boat had no purpose on our lakes. Why is it allowed? Why didn't the lake police slap the owner with a noise violation and take the boat to the impound lot for bad boats. The extreme wake and waves it produced was certainly a source of joy for fellow boaters - not.
Noise on our lakes is constant irritant. So are the macho man-boys with their motorcycles and souped-up cars on our streets.
I would:
-- Double the price of boat gas
-- Steeply tax boat motors over 50 hp (I would have to pay or gladly trade in motor)
-- Impose a luxury tax on boats of $50,000
-- I would subject boats and their motors to periodic specialized EPA-DNR testing including a noise limit.
-- Taxes collected would be used to beef up lake patrol, including remote sound monitoring with telescopic pictures. (like traffic cameras)
Ted Schaefer
Fairmont