Some boats docked at the Woods at Lake Davidson have larger motors than permitted in Davidson. (David Boraks photo)

By DAVID BORAKS
DavidsonNews.net

A new joint committee of Davidson and Mooresville officials has begun meeting to seek consensus on how to protect water quality and recreational safety on Lake Davidson. The Lake Davidson Working Committee plans a public meeting Sept. 3 where citizens will be invited to comment, including on proposals to bring the two towns’ rules into agreement on boat sizes, development buffers and other issues.

The 341-acre Lake Davidson is bounded by I-77 on the west, Mooresville to the north, and Davidson on the south and east. The two-town initiative follows steady development that has increased the number of people living along and using the lake.

Since the working committee’s first meeting in July, various groups have begun speaking out about concerns – and offering differing visions for the future of Lake Davidson. Most of those interviewed in recent days – from town officials to members of Friends of Lake Davidson to the Davidson Lands Conservancy – support protecting the lake as development continues. At the same time, a newly formed group of boat owners and others called PLEASE@LKD opposes tightening regulations or enforcing existing ones, at least when it comes to boating.

ZONING APPROACH

Since 1980, Davidson has used master plan approvals and a series of 2001 planning ordinance amendments to require construction-free zones, or buffers, around the lake, and to restrict the size of boats and personal watercraft (such as Jet-Skis) that may be docked in Davidson to those with motors less than 10 horsepower.

Mooresville officials also have been studying restrictions. A long-range plan for Mount Mourne-South Iredell, written in 2006 and adopted by the Mooresville Town Board in 2007, provides for buffers and improved erosion and runoff controls. It also asks the board to :

Consider restrictions on the size, speed and number of watercraft allowed on the Lake. Motorized watercraft cause shoreline erosion and bring accompanying litter and spills of gas and oil into the Lake. Just a few speedboats on the very small Lake can cause safety problems.

Just how far the towns can go to regulate boats and personal watercraft are unclear. Davidson officials acknowledge their powers are limited. The towns do not have jurisdiction on the lake itself, though they can – and have – tried to restrict the size of motors on boats allowed to dock on the lake through zoning rules.

SEEKING MOORESVILLE AGREEMENT

Last year, as planning began for major residential development on the Mooresville side, Davidson attempted to get Mooresville to bring its regulations in line with Davidson’s through an interlocal agreement.

“We’ve had a long established vision, since 1980,” Davidson Town Manager Leamon Brice said this week. “What we did was ask (Mooresville) to adopt our vision.”

The Davidson Town Board approved the proposed agreement with Mooresville that mirrors the rules already in place in Davidson and proposes additional restrictions, including closing the only boat access point – off Transco Road in Mooresville. But Mooresville’s board tabled the proposal in November, saying it wanted to study the matter more closely, especially questions about jurisdiction.

As many as 10 different entities regulate the lake, including Duke Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Lake Norman Marine Commission, Mr. Brice said.

In April 2008, the Mooresville board was scheduled to reconsider the proposed agreement, but Davidson officials asked the board for a delay to allow more time for study, Mr. Brice said.

This summer, the two towns formed the working committee to re-examine the proposal. The group could develop a new interlocal agreement or the towns’ cooperation could take another form, said Dawn Blobaum, Davidson’s assistant town manager.

“Davidson and Mooresville would have to agree on how the lake would be regulated,” she said this week. “It might be a joint vision for the lake, it may involve an interlocal agreement or may not, it may involve zoning.”

Members of the working committee are, from Davidson: Ms. Blobaum and Commissioners Margo Williams and Bill Johnson. Representing Mooresville are Commissioners Frank Rader and Miles Atkins and Planning Director Tim Brown. Davidson Town Attorney Rick Kline also attends the meetings. Ms. Williams is the group’s chair.

The group has been mapping the lake; researching jurisdictional issues; studying water quality; gathering information about future development; and tallying the number of boats and boat slips already on the lake, including those with motors larger than 10 horsepower.

A 75-horsepower motor on a boat docked at the Woods at Lake Davidson.

Ms. Blobaum said the committee has counted 52 boats on Lake Davidson, 40 of which have motors larger than 10 horsepower. There also are more than 100 boat slips.

Mooresville’s representatives say the working committee will help engage the public and clear up questions about how far the towns can go to regulate the lake. In an interview with the Mooresville Tribune this week, Mr. Atkins said the committee was “really going to try to engage the public in the process.” And he said it would give the towns a chance to “understand what we do have oversight on and what we don’t.”

SOME WANT LARGE BOATS

Even as the joint Mooresville-Davidson committee begins work, citizens are beginning to organize and speak out about their visions for Lake Davidson.

John Akin, who lives in the Lake Davidson Park neighborhood and is a spokesman for PLEASE@LKD, said the group opposes plans to restrict access by large boats. “People have been using the lake for years and years,” and members would like to retain access for larger boats, he said.

Davidson has been regulating boat access around the lake through planning and zoning since 1980. But those rules have not been enforced, and some homeowners have launched and now keep boats docked on the lake with motors over 10 horsepower – some over 100 or more, according to a check of boats this week.

“We haven’t enforced it,” Ms. Blobaum said. “What we have done is each spring written a letter (to homeowners in neighborhoods around the lake subject to the rules) that says don’t buy a big boat, and emphasizes the regulations.”

In some cases, the size limit was included in a development’s master plan at the time the town approved the project. In others, restrictions are in neighborhood covenants. Since 2001, rules are also in the town’s planning ordinance requiring new developments to adhere to restrictions on both boat sizes and buffers.

Davidson Point, a newer development north of downtown, off Bridges Farm Road, is a “perfect example of how to do it,” Ms. Blobaum said. All homebuyers have been informed of the restrictions from the start, and there’s “a lot of buy-in” on the rules, she said.

DavidsonNews.net checked neighborhood boat slips at Davidson Point, and all the boats docked there appear to have engines below 10 horsepower. That’s not the case at other Davidson neighborhoods, such as the Woods at Lake Davidson, where despite restrictions, boats with motors of 100 horsepower and more are visible in the neighborhood slips.

Ms. Blobaum admits enforcement has been a problem. “We don’t have anyone in the Planning Department who does enforcement,” she said.

The prospect of increased enforcement has boat owners concerned. Mr. Akin, of the PLEASE@LKD group, said he doesn’t think the town has authority to set boat size limits. “In Davidson, they’re acting like they have all the regulatory ability and authority to do this. But all the people we’re talking to say the towns don’t have the regulatory authority,” Mr. Akin said.

WATER QUALITY, SAFETY ISSUES

Davidson officials say they are trying to help maintain Lake Davidson’s water quality as it faces further development. They say both the proposals for uniform, wider buffers and limits on boat motors between the two towns are aimed at protecting the lake, which has limited inflow and outflow to nearby Lake Norman.

One of the town’s visions for the lake is to make it safe for less-disruptive forms of recreation than large boats. With several new public access areas in the planning stages, it’s likely that the number of canoes and kayaks on the lake will increase. Town officials and advocates of boating restrictions say if growth in the number of large boats is left unchecked, it could create a safety hazard.

The Davidson Lands Conservancy endorses new regulatory efforts, including last fall’s proposed interlocal agreement. “We are very supportive of the interlocal agreement,” said D. Roy Alexander, the conservancy’s executive director. “We actually would like to see some stronger regulations in it.”

Among other things, the conservancy believes the lake’s health would be better protected with even wider buffers – 200 feet instead of 100 – and by limiting boats to electric motors only, he said.

He said Lake Davidson, which is separate from Lake Norman and accounts for only about 1 percent of the total water area, needs stronger protections.

“Lake Davidson needs different protective regulations than (Lake Norman) does because of its hydrology and because of the fact that there’s not a free interchange of water with the rest of the lake, except above certain levels,” Mr. Alexander said.

Davidson College biologist Pat Peroni said Lake Davidson lacks a regular exchange of water with other bodies of water, a process that helps cleanse the lake of pollutants. There is no open channel between Lake Norman and Lake Davidson, she said, and most of the year, no exchange of water between the two.

“What that means is once materials (such as oil and gas, runoff from the I-77 causeway or sediment from erosion) get into that lake, Lake Davidson, they tend to stick around, whereas Lake Norman and Mountain Island Lake tend to flush through pretty quickly,” she said.

VISIONS OF THE FUTURE

Wider buffers and limits on the size of boat motors could help control erosion and runoff. “If you dump a lot of nutrients in there, you’re going to get algal blooms that are going to make the lake look like pea soup. It’s not going to smell very good,” Ms. Peroni said.

“As development proceeds around the lake, if we don’t have buffers and if there is a huge increase in the amount of traffic of higher powered motor boats, we could end up with a very different type of lake, a lake that most people will not enjoy,” she added.

For Doug Oldenburg, a Spinnaker Cove resident and member of Friends of Lake Davidson, the main issue is protecting the lake amid future growth. “The water quality today is OK, but our concern is what is it going to be when we add more and more high horsepower boats to the lake?”

“We think it’s not asking too much to keep a little lake of 1 percent (of Lake Norman’s size) for kayaks and canoes and swimmers as well,” he added.