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Highlands Today

Don't Drive On Lake Beds, FWC Warns

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

Tracks caused by a vehicle near Veterans Beach on Lake Jackson.

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: June 23, 2008

SEBRING — Four tracks mark rip from near the sidewalk, through a lawn and into the dry sand that was once part of Lake Jackson. Multiple pontoon boats were beached just south of Veterans Beach.

They're a usual sight for the lake as it hits all-time historic low levels, but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sees a potential problem here.

Officer Erika Zimmerman said these days she often catches some boaters trying to drive their trucks and trailers into the shore of the lake bed to pull the boats out, and sometimes just for the fun of it.

What ends up happening, she said, is that they rip up the vegetation, spread oil and gas on the lake bed, leave deep treads and end up polluting the lake once the water returns to that area.

Often, they get stuck and have to be dragged out of the bed, she said.

"Naturally, people that live on the lake butt up to state property," she said. "When the water recedes, it's still state property, but they look at it as 'well, they got a bigger back yard."

Highlands County Lakes Manager Clell Ford said the tire tracks also compact the soil, making it nearly impossible for fish to lay their eggs until the lake's waves loosen it up. That can take several months.

Last summer, the southwest shore of the lake facing U.S. became a hot spot for SUVs to tear through the expanding beach, Ford said. The county started a lake restoration project on the shore and several rare terns began nesting there at the same time, causing him to complain to the city about the drivers.

He said Monday that the driving on the southwest lake bed has not been as big a problem this year, but the way Zimmerman described it, many of the lakefront residents are doing it in what they think is their own property.

She had one incident last month where one car was stuck in the bed behind one home, and the driver got another truck to try towing that one out. That truck got stuck, and before calling for help, the person and his friends ended up with five vehicles partially buried in the muck.

Legally, one's property ends at the natural high water mark, which varies for each location.
Zimmerman said FWC officers are not concerned about people going past that point to have a barbecue, lounge in the sand or do anything else out there, as long as it doesn't involve a combustion engine.

Driving through it, leaving something that would pollute the lake or making deep ruts in the bed are all second-degree misdemeanors.

She said she mostly gives out warnings rather than slapping the errant drivers with fines, but technically, she said she could charge them with an offense that could net a $500 fine and a 60-day jail sentence.

"It all depends on the severity of the damage," Zimmerman said. "Anybody that lives on a public lake, that's state property so they need to be aware that is state property."

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