Good people need to protect the Public Trust Doctrine

To the Editor of The Lakeland Times:

A while back I attended a public meeting where the president of a lake association did a presentation on lake monitoring. I sat there quietly amused while he patted himself on the back while telling us what a wonderful job he was doing. This was OK, it was harmless. But when he made a couple of remarks that were in no way connected to lake monitoring, I became alarmed. At that point I could see his real agenda was nothing more than keeping people off the subject lakes. I now see more and more evidence of this concept of "privatizing" our lakes.

Recently this same lake association president had a letter about the threat of aquatic invasive species in which he took a shot at the tourism industry (fewer tourists mean fewer people on "his" lake). In that same letter he advocated quarantining lakes, another tool to limit access to our lakes. In the Sept. 4 Lakeland Times another writer proposed chaining boat launches to prevent "unsupervised lake access." I wonder what criteria these people would use to select who gets access. Would it be skin color, religious affiliation, their financial worth? I thought this kind of thinking was put to rest in 1945.

I am not belittling the threats of AIS, but as Steve Schieffer of Harmony Environmental said recently, the public may be a bit overly concerned about AIS (reminds me of Henny Penny or Al Gore). I truly believe some have grabbed this issue to serve their unspoken goal of limiting public access to "their" lakes. All our lakes (and state forests) belong to the five million people of Wisconsin. Issues concerning these resources should be resolved only after soliciting and receiving input from everyone, not just a few wealthy property owners. But, sadly I see the actions of a few affecting the lives of millions. For instance, a few lakefront property owners can get all the surrounding property rezoned, which means no more resorts on that lake, no more campgrounds on that lake. And this is happening. The working family in Janesville and the dairy farmer from Abbotsford deserve a chance to vacation and enjoy their lakes and woods. The Public Trust Doctrine will not be overturned in one fell swoop, but small step by small step it can be whittled away, unless good people do something.

Ron Winter

Boulder Junction