By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

Will Libby feels “quicker is better” as the Bridgton ponders drafting rules regarding overnight boat lodging on local lakes, as well as developing a mooring ordinance and pursuing a harbormaster position.

“Our concern is when you wake up in the morning and you find a houseboat 30 feet off your shore, and the first thing they do as you’re watching them is they get all out of their house with a little enclosure and jump in the lake. I don’t think it’s to swim,” said Libby, who owns property on Highland Lake.

Seeking help with the situation was fruitless.

“When you say, well what can I do about this? You can call the state. And first I called the wardens, that’s not their area whatsoever. They referred me to the Department of Environmental Protection. And they said, well, what proof do you have? Well, once I videoed it and I would’ve to be underwater, I’m not sure I’d have much proof. And I’m not certainly going to burden Phil (Jones, the police chief) with this because that’s not their purview either. So, you are the people that are going to determine this. It’s probably past due,” Libby told the Bridgton Select Board Tuesday night. “I remember at least 10 years ago, Bob Macdonald brought something very similar to this as a petition to you people. And it went nowhere. 10 years ago, we didn’t have the populations we have and we didn’t have people abusing the lakes the way they do.”

Before the Bridgton Planning Board tackles the issue of developing regulations regarding overnight boat living/lodging on Bridgton lakes, Chair Deb Brusini wanted to get the Select Board’s take on the matter.

“This is something that’s not necessarily controversial, but it could be,” she told the board Tuesday night. “We don’t want to spend staff time and board time unless this board feels it is something to invest time in.”

The issue was raised by Lakes Environmental Association a couple of years ago, but planners were in deep in developing land use regulations that the matter was temporarily shelved. Then, the public started raising concerns.

“The board believes that there could be some straightforward ways to address this. Until some work is done to figure it out, that’s not known for sure,” Brusini said. “The horse is still in the barn, so to speak. There’s not house boats all over the lakes here. There’s certainly quite a few in Naples to the tune of a good 40 that you could spend the night on. With those towns regulating and prohibiting house boats and overnight living to some extent. Waters are the lifeblood of this town. It seems like a good time to bring it forward...to look into it and see what it would take either to prohibit or restrict house boats or if needed to have a very simple harbormaster...to have a policy and staffing similar to what Harrison has, which is a season harbormaster that costs around $8,000 per year.”

Brusini said a simple approach would be to review existing ordinances used by other towns, such as Harrison and Belgrade, and “customize it” to meet Bridgton’s needs. She pointed out that Naples’ ordinance is “fairly complicated” and “that’s why they have so many people.”

In a conversation with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Brusini was told state officials are recommending towns to implement ordinances restricting house boats for two reasons.

“One is that you can take a barge, put a structure on it, like a house and put in whatever (kitchen and sanitation), if it doesn’t have a motor, then there’s certain things that aren’t required. I’m not sure, not saying that would happen here, but we certainly wouldn’t want it to happen. Then the other thing is just there is more overnighting on lakes. Some of it is very large cabin cruisers. I’m not talking about the little cuddy, where the father and the kids go out and maybe they moor it right on their dock and spend the night,” she said.  “I’m talking about what you see in Naples, which is where they can handle it, which are 30, 40-foot boats. There’s been more issues on the lakes, according to a harbormaster, with people anchoring them close to waterfront homes...The town is growing. There’s a lot more housing going on. There’s a lot of waterfront development, and I think we want to protect the golden goose.”

Several people in attendance strongly supported the town to act as soon as possible.

Bruce Taylor of Sweden, who is a physician, voiced concerns with some boating enthusiasts dumping gray and black (sewage) water into the lakes, since Bridgton as no marinas on bodies such as Highland Lake, Moose and Woods Pond to properly dispose of such wastes. Such dumping results in contamination resulting in gastro-intestinal problems if water is ingested while swimming, along with staph infections.

“I’m glad that somebody is being proactive, not only for the infectious content of this, but also for any possible chemical or medication content,” he said.

Susan Hatch, who resides near Highland Lake, feels looking into a mooring ordinance is now overdue. She said there has been a “blatant disrespect” regarding where moorings have been placed near the town boat launch. She said one individual, particularly, has been “very disrespectful for everyone else’s availability to have it open and do what the dock was supposed to do.”

“Proactive for our lake is the key word. This is important. I’m glad this is coming to a head. I just hope it’s sooner than later because it’s extra work if you have to wait for later,” Hatch said.

“Sometimes, if you wait for later, it’s too late,” Select Board Chair Carmen Lone added.

Bill Dexter, who is a member of the Moose Pond Association, applauded town officials for bringing the issue to the table.

“Thank you for doing this. The Moose Pond Association is in full support of regulation of this and actually prohibiting overnight boating on the lakes. We think it’s a bad idea on lots of levels, and not the least of which is because I understand there’s no tax benefit to the town,” he said. “Boating behaviors maybe don’t always conform to the current regulations and can create some unsafe situations, which have made a lot of people uncomfortable. There is support of hiring and equipping a harbormaster who can serve some regulatory and enforcement functions on our lakes to keep them at a safe behavior level. We’re in support of the Harrison model, which is, I believe, a part-time sort of May to October position. Moose Pond Association would love to work with the town to try to bring that forward should you want our assistance.”

If Bridgton enacts regulations regarding house boats and moorings, the town would look to a harbormaster to enforce those rules. As Bridgton officials look into adding a harbormaster, the Select Board would like to find out if neighboring towns that share the same waterbody — Bridgton, Denmark and Sweden all border Moose Pond — would be interested in entering an agreement to share the cost.

Colin Holme, executive director of Lakes Environmental Association, pointed out the organization raised a red flag about house boats back in 2021.

“This issue certainly has come to everyone’s attention again this year. It’s not the first time that Bridgton’s lakes have been used overnight for of the whole summer. I remember, eight or nine years ago, there was a motorboat whose motor had been removed and was moored in the middle of Highland Lake for most of the summer. There were a lot of complaints, at least at our office about that,” Holme said. “The issue is sanitation. There is no way for them to get sanitation out of there other than maybe bucketing it out. There’s a lot of state regulations regarding our waters. But the one that really is pertinent in this situation is you’re not allowed to dump any gray water, or certainly not black water into fresh waters. It’s just illegal. In marine waters, you are allowed to do that, but in fresh waters, it needs to go to a tank.”

Because Bridgton has no pumping stations, “you know what people do is the easiest way possible, especially if you’re renting out some of these things, which is the situation. I think in Bridgton, the easy way to get rid of the waste is the water right there. And that’s just not acceptable. It’s not sanitary. It’s not safe,” Holme said.

While the issue may not be a huge problem now, Holme certainly thinks it can get a lot worse.

“And, it will, I mean, boating is becoming more and more popular. I see them online. If anybody goes on Craigslist or Facebook marketplace, people are selling these boats. They strip down a pontoon, they put a box on it with a deck, and then voila. And if it has a toilet, it’s just a hole with a bucket. And that’s the issue. Our issue is sanitation,” Holme added.

He concluded saying Bridgton hiring a harbormaster is “overdue” considering the town has 10 lakes.

Town Manager Robert Peabody clarified that when it comes to a harbormaster, there are two levels. One level is the harbormaster simply enforces local ordinances including overnight lodging and moorings. Or, the harbormaster undergoes police academy training and can then enforce state laws, including arresting individuals for operating under the influence and issue citations.

“People have been complaining that you can put a mooring anywhere in on Bridgton...A lot of people are doing it and there’s been complaints in the past about it. So, this could be a way to kill at least two of those issues and start to figure out how and what type of harbormaster would work for Bridgton in an incremental way rather than either continuing to ignore it or jumping to the deputized option,” Holme said.

While on the surface it may appear simple to put ordinances together to address these problems, Town Manager Bob Peabody warned laws are never simple.

“If people are just putting moorings in the lakes, how are they doing that? Are they going over other people’s personal property? Long story short, I think it’s best to get ahead of the issue. I’m not suggesting we go hunting down every mooring. That’s not proper. I think house boats is the main issue because of the health of the lakes and we don’t want it to escalate. So, the board will do whatever it can, but I think, you know, if there’s some basic information that can be gotten, maybe that’s the next step. I do believe we definitely need town staff involved to be able to look at the legal situation and help draft this. Ordinance doesn’t sound like simple as possible,” Peabody said.

Squeezing out time to work on a mooring ordinance and overnight lodging could be difficult for planners since they are already deep into developing rules to address the state recently passed LD 2003, regarding affordable housing. Ideally, planners would like to address the issue before it becomes a major problem, but Brusini suspects that a proposal would likely land on next November’s warrant, not the June annual town meeting.

“I would like to see it sooner the better,” said Selectman Paul Tworog, feeling putting together a very “simple ordinance that may turn out to be a placeholder” on the June warrant and “then worry about some of the further developments after that” might be a better approach.

If planners use other towns’ ordinances as models, Brusini said, “We can take out what we think we don’t need and keep what we think we need. They’re both pretty straightforward... It would certainly be nice to have something in place by next summer, but I’m just not totally positive without more information that that’s possible.”