SOUTHWICK – Town Clerk Michelle Hill announced on Monday that the proposed amended bylaw for personal watercraft on North Pond has been officially approved.
Previously approved by the Attorney General’s office, the bylaw also had to get approval from several state agencies in order to become official, including the Director of the Division of Law Enforcement of the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Environmental Law Enforcement and/or the Commissioner of Fisheries, Wildlife and Environmental Law.
As a result of the bylaw being approved by the state agencies, Hill stated that the bylaw needs to be posted for five days until it can become official. Hill posted it on Friday March 8 and it is expected that the bylaw will become official on March 14.
Once it’s official, Southwick Chief of Police Kevin Bishop, who is also the harbormaster for Congamond Lake, will be able to post signs around North Pond making people aware of the rules.
At the annual town meeting in May 2018, residents voted and approved the warrant article to accept a Chapter 75 bylaw allowing for personal watercraft use on the North Pond section of Congamond Lake.
On June 1, 2018 Southwick Town Clerk Michelle Hill sent the amendment to the attorney general’s office to either approve or disapprove the bylaw.
Select Board Vice-Chairman Russ Fox is happy to finally see the bylaw become official.
“It was a long process,” said Fox. “That’s what the voters asked for and that’s what was finally achieved.”
The bylaw stems from May 18, 2017 when former Southwick Police Chief David Ricardi released a statement indicating that personal watercraft would be allowed on North Pond.
When receiving clarification from the Environmental Police, Ricardi was informed that a specific part of a lake has to be a minimum of 75 acres to allow jet skis on that body of water. Even though North Pond is 50 acres, Congamond Lake was determined as a “great pond” consisting of three basins connected by channels and jet skis would be allowed. The confusion to the actual ruling existed when the Lake Management Committee was told by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that you have to treat each of the three bodies of water on the lake separately.
In August 2017, then Select Board Chair Doug Moglin proposed to form a town bylaw that could either ask residents to vote against or in favor of jet skis on North Pond or just having jet ski’s on North Pond at headway speed, which is six miles per hour. This would allow personal watercraft users to travel through North Pond at a slow speed so they can reach Middle or South Pond, bodies of water that are much larger and more common for jet ski activity.
