On Sept. 4, the Lake County Planning and Zoning Commission approved the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for the Silver Rapids Resort Project.  Here’s what that means for our lakes, roads, and community.
 Docks and impact on lake boat population: 27 docks (45’ L x 4’ W), 13 for cabin owners, two for motel guests, ten for restaurant guests, and two for fueling/launching. Twenty-five docks (75-100 mooring spaces), an increase from the developers’ claimed current number of 15 docks (13 with 26 mooring spaces.)  This added boat capacity at a pinch point next to rapids, wetlands, and a narrow, mile long channel, is excessive. Thirty-to-forty mooring spaces for the restaurant is ridiculously high. The recently installed septic system allows for a 55-seat restaurant with 13 bar stools. Assuming resort residents are given priority seating, local access to the restaurant, whether driving or boating, will be limited. The ten restaurant docks will be used mostly for boat rentals, adding to the overall boats on the lakes.  Twenty-five docks on the Farm Lake side, and boardwalks required to access them due to steep embankments, will stretch almost the entire length of the NE shoreline of the resort. The 27 docks could happen as soon as next summer.  
 Boat traffic safety, shoreline impact, community impact: Twenty-five docks are planned on the Farm Lake channel, but the launching dock is located on the White Iron side adjacent to the bridge and new beach just above a rapids. Quarter-share owners of new cabins will rotate weekly on weekends. (No condition for weekday staggering was placed in the CUP.)  They will bring their own boats to fill the 45-60 moorings reserved for them, which means 90-120 boats will be waiting to be launched, or retrieved, and moved under the bridge on the one or two turnover weekend days.  There is safe passage for only one or two boats at a time under the bridge.  At times the current makes this hazardous. 
 Resort occupants rotating weekly are likely to use their boats daily, while shoreline owners use their boats less frequently (Homeowners on the channel have only 32 boats). This one-mile-long channel averages 500-700 feet wide and will suffer from dramatically increased boat traffic without safety and shoreline erosion considered. Jet-skis also got a pass.  A condition to the CUP requires the resort “to discourage the use of jet-skis.” An effective condition would have been, “No launching, docking or fueling of jet-skis.” Increased boat traffic in the channel, the only access to the BWCA for canoeists from White Iron and the Farm Lake channel, will at times drive canoes off the channel entirely. 
 Road traffic and safety: The resort residential capacity is likely to be 440 persons, with turnover weekly. This is about double the historic/existing summer capacity. Imagine, the Kawishiwi Trail congestion near Silver Rapids when the resort empties and refills on weekends:  Around 100 vehicles, most with boat trailers, will be arriving and launching boats and 100 retrieving boats and leaving the resort. Unfortunately, the commissioners rejected the county highway engineer’s recommendation. He stated in his report “A traffic study and traffic calming alternatives investigation is highly recommended.”
This is bad news for our lakes, roads, and community.  The scale of the project should be reduced.  
Marilyn Marsden
Fall Lake Township