By: Mike Kennedy mkennedy@railey.com 301-616-6106 September 3rd, 2010 Category: Garrett County News, News

Deep Creek Lake manager Carolyn Mathews is reporting that DNR will proceed forward with the previously proposed changes in the PWC (personal watercraft) docking regulations.  However, there was one major change - the proposal will not require the $100 permit fee for PWCs as was originally proposed.

This new regulation will essentially ban all PWC stands that currently exist along the shoreline of Deep Creek Lake. Once approved through the permit process lakefront homeowners will now have to moor their PWCs to their dock. Lake access homeowners will have to moor their PWCs to the community boat dock.

The proposal and public comments can be found at this link;

http://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/western/deepcreeknrma.asp

If you are a dock permit holder you can probably expect to receive notice in the mail from DNR sometime in the near future.

By: Mike Kennedy mkennedy@railey.com 301-616-6106 August 28th, 2009 Category: News

Recently, DNR’s Deep Creek Lake Manager, Carolyn Matthews, released proposed changes to the current lake regulations that deal with the docking and mooring of personal watercrafts (PWCs) at permitted Type A boat docks and common docks.

It is proposed that lakefront property owners with private Type A dock permits (also known as Buffer Strip Use Permits) may keep up to 4 boats (current regulations only allow for 3 boats) on the lake - 3 of which may be a combination of power boats and personal watercraft provided the permit holder pays an additional $100 permit fee. These property owners may also keep beached boats on the shoreline provided they weigh less than 500 lbs.  The current regulations only allow for 2 power boats and 1 non power boat (a sailboat for example) - but many lakefront property owners also keep either one or two PWCs at their docks in addition to the 2 power and 1 non power boats.  When PWCs were smaller and could be beached on the shoreline this wasn’t such a big deal - but now that most PWCs weigh more than 500 lbs and need to be moored at a dock this has become a much bigger issue for DNR.

It is also proposed that the Lake Manager will be given authority to monitor and approve the number of PWCs that can be moored at a common dock for the various lake access communities around Deep Creek Lake. The proposal states that the amount of PWCs moored at these types of docks will not exceed 1/3rd of the allocated number of slips already approved. This proposal does not say whether the PWC must be moored to the dock in the water or if it can be moored on an individual PWC stand on the shoreline. Most lake access property owners are allocated one (1)  boat slip in a community or neighborhood association’s common dock. However, some owners in these communities also own PWCs in addition to a boat and have kept the PWC on a shoreline stand near the common dock. This proposal may very well eliminate the PWCs stands you see near these common docks.

Public comment on this issue will probably run from October 9th, 2009 thru November 9th, 2009. You can make Public Comment on DNR’s website about the proposed PWC docking changes by clicking here.

These proposals will affect many property and real estate owners around Deep Creek Lake so stay tuned for further updates. When we get additional details we’ll post the information on this blog. To stay updated please sign up for updates via e-mail or RSS a little ways down the right hand side of our main blog page.