Tuesday, October 20, 2015

PSA - Getting Serious About a "No-Wake Lake"

December 2015 update

Three members of the Missouri House of Representatives that often advocate for the lake area have been making stirrings lately about conditions on The Lake of the Ozarks regarding large wakes.  On November 4th, a public forum will be held at the Osage Beach City Hall at 9am to hear concerns regarding lake conditions along with dock and fire safety issues.

The Lake's rather undeserving reputation for being hazardous has been getting more attention over the past year. Despite efforts from Ameren to hold boat size down through dock regulation, this year's flooding along with the subsequent "no-wake" start to the 4th of July holiday weekend brought home the problem of large wakes and public pressure to do something about it.

A proposal being floated at this time by Rep. Wood is to restrict any area of the lake with less than 1250 feet from shoreline to shoreline as a no-wake zone, possibly only for larger boats.  This restriction would have a profound impact, given that nearly every cove on the lake would fall into this category. I urge anyone with an interest to either attend the meeting or write their representative as to their opinion, along with any ideas they may have to help improve situation.

Information on how to contact the three attending members of the State House of Representatives can be found at each link.

Rocky Miller (district includes Osage Beach and Lake Ozark area)
Diane Franklin (district includes Camdenton area)
David Wood  (district includes Gravois arm)

This will likely be worked out by those of us who own property on the lake, and could easily affect home values. Get involved if you can.