Burrillville to explore PWC restrictions

BURRILLVILLE — For lakefront homeowner Paul Riendeau, this past summer at Pascoag Reservoir, also known as Echo Lake, was more like the wild west than a peaceful haven for leisurely summertime activities.

Riendeau of 83 Joslin Lane, Pascoag, appeared before the Town Council Wednesday with a message: the proliferation in recent years of personal water craft, specifically jet skies, on the 325-acre lake is a recipe for disaster for boaters and swimmers.

Riendeau said this past summer was particularly bad, saying the lake is plagued with out-of-town jet skiers jumping wakes from boats and cutting off boats towing water skiers.

“This summer I had someone in tow and there were jet skiers jumping behind him and crossing the lane,” Riendeau told the council. “At one point, one of them jumped the wake within a couple feet of my passenger’s head. It almost made me not want to go onto the lake again.”

Riendeau expressed his concerns to Town Councilman Jeremy Bailey who placed the matter on the council’s agenda for discussion Wednesday night. At issue is whether the town can take steps to limit personal watercraft on the lake.

“The problem doesn’t seem to be coming from the single-family residences on the lake, but from people who are accessing the lake from either the campground or the marina at the boathouse,” Bailey explained. If it were me, I wouldn’t allow anyone to dock a jet ski at the boathouse without at least checking for a license so that we don’t have just any yahoo jumping on one of these machines.”

In Rhode Island, anyone operating a personal watercraft, regardless of age, must have passed an approved boater education course approved by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. Operators who are required to have passed a boater education course must carry on board their certificate of completion.

Riendeau says the problem stems from Echo Lake Campground, which has a ramp to the lake.

“It’s not the campers there per say, but guests of the campers or people from the outside who are are accessing the lake using that ramp,” he said. “The public ramp at the boathouse can be monitored and they can handle any complaints there, but the same can’t be said for the campground. The campground is letting them come in willy-nilly.”

The campground has been operating since the 1955 and was founded by the late John and Helen Moroney. When Helen Moroney died in 2015, the campground was left to family members who hired a general manager to oversee operations.

Riendeau said when he and other lakefront homeowners registered their concerns to the general manager, he appeared to downplay the problem.

On a motion by Councilman Raymond Trinque, the council agreed to address the problem by directing Town Administrator Michael C. Wood, Police Chief Stephen Lynch and Town Solicitor William Dimitri to research what options the council has to limit jet skies.

“While we don’t want to start legislating what the state has already legislated and we certainly don’t want to have to equip the police with jet skies, there’s still a problem of certain people circumventing the law,” he said.

Wood said he will also facilitate a meeting between town officials, the DEM and the new owners of the campground on the need for more oversights and tighter controls of the campground’s boat ramp.

Councilman Stephen Rawson said addressing the problem is long overdue.

“It’s amazing that some people feel so entitled that they can endanger other people’s lives,” he said. “We need to look at this closely and talk to the campground about their habit of allowing people on jet skies that may not be licensed. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a serious injury or death because of this activity.”