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Posted: Friday, March 6, 2015 1:47 pm
By Ezra Silk
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The bill’s goal is to increase access to beaches on Frye Island, which have been increasingly roped off to boaters.
State Rep. Michael Shaw, D-Standish, has proposed legislation to restrict the size of state-authorized swim areas across Maine – a proposal that comes in response to the extensive use of roped-off swim areas on Frye Island, Shaw said.
In late January, Shaw submitted LD 126, “An Act to Restrict Swim Areas,” which limits the size of roped-off swim areas regulated by the Bureau of Parks and Lands. Only governmental entities and commercial campgrounds can obtain permits for such swim areas, which ban boaters from entering roped-off shoreline areas, mainly sandy beaches. The bill would limit the size of the swim areas to either half the length of the permitted property’s shore frontage, or 200 feet if the property includes less than 400 feet of shore frontage.
Although the Maine House indefinitely postponed the bill on Feb. 12 in order to allow Shaw to make minor adjustments to the language, he plans to reintroduce the key provisions of LD 126 this legislative session in a forthcoming bill, “An Act to Limit the Use of Ropes and Buoys in Great Ponds.” Great ponds are lakes that are 10 acres or larger.
Shaw said he proposed the bill in response to Frye Island’s prolific use of swim areas in recent years. According to George Powell, the director of boating facilities division for the Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry, Frye Island possesses 12 of the 21 state-issued swim area permits on Sebago Lake. Sebago Lake State Park holds five of the permits, he said.
In Shaw’s view, many of Frye Island’s swim areas are not being used to protect swimmers.
“Currently, Frye Island has roped off thousands of feet of water, calling them swim areas, but in reality it’s just blocking the citizens of the state of Maine from accessing the water for things like kayaking, canoeing and fishing,” Shaw said. “The people of the state of Maine own the water on all great ponds. The water is owned by the people.”
“I think they just had this idea that they wanted to block everybody from the water,” Shaw added. “All of a sudden they just applied for the permits and put them out. I think they just started putting them out in the last couple years. I started getting complaints from constituents.”
In particular, Shaw said Frye Island’s decision to rope off a 1,000-by-200-foot swim area in front of Long Beach was egregious.
“Clearly they’re just trying to block the citizens of the state of Maine from accessing the water in that area,” Shaw said.
According to Frye Island Town Manager Gary Donohue, the town extended the length of the Long Beach swim area permit in the summer of 2014 as a “housekeeping measure” meant to keep boaters from using the beach as a waste disposal area.
“People were defecating on the beach,” Donohue said. “They were leaving dog poop on the beach. It was becoming unsanitary for the Frye Island residents. People were leaving litter, dirty diapers. It was pretty bad. We were having to send Department of Public Works employees to go down and clean up the mess.”
According to Donohue, the extended swim area quickly resolved the issue.
“As soon as we did the rope further out, all the problems down there went away,” he said. “It was a quick fix for a problem that I don’t think the town of Frye Island or anybody should want to put up with.”
Donohue, who declined to comment on Shaw’s proposed legislation, said that boaters are free to use the town of Frye Island’s public restroom.
“We don’t have the resources to have somebody patrolling the beach from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. seven days a week,” he said.
Roger Wheeler, a director with Friends of Sebago Lake, suggested that Shaw was shilling for the boating community, which has lost access to recreational spots along the shoreline as the artificially heightened lake level has eroded beaches in recent years, he said.
“It appears that boating interests want more beaches to be able to boat to, that’s my best guess,” he said. “It’s a bad pill in my opinion.”
Wheeler said Shaw’s bill could have an impact on the popular Songo Beach in Sebago Lake State Park.
“All the people of Lewiston that come to Songo Beach are being thrown under the bus,” he said. “They don’t even know about this. If Mike Shaw gets his way, half that swim area will be reduced.”
According to Powell, the bill, if passed, would have modest impacts on Songo Beach, if any.
“We believe we have enough frontage as defined in LD 260 to comply with the length restrictions,” he said. “At most we may have to shorten one or two areas.”
The State Parks system holds 12 of the 140 swim area permits that have been issued across Maine, Powell said. According to Powell, the Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry, which includes the State Parks system, is not opposed to the language in Shaw’s bill.
“There’s going to be some more work for us but not enough work to have us object to it,” he said.
Shaw said he had not consulted with any local boating associations or other interests before writing the bill. The impetus from the bill came from constituent outcry, he said.
“They thought the 1,000-foot-long swim area was probably a bit too much,” he said. “We want to have access to the water. I think people want to go fishing and kayaking and quite frankly I had people call me from Frye Island that complained about the swim area because they like to kayak or canoe in that area.”
“In my opinion it’s very reasonable,” Shaw said. “The reason to have a swim area is to provide a safe area for children to go swimming. That’s it. It’s not to block people from boating or fishing. If you don’t want boats landing on your property put out a no-trespassing sign.”
