Legislators seek end to Lake Macbride horsepower limits, but some like it quiet

Opponents of a special state law regulating the use of motor boats on Lake Macbride say they understand why local legislators support the rule.

“They're just doing their constituents' bidding,” said Brian Gallagher, 40, of Cedar Rapids. “What we don't understand is why the other state representatives and senators have allowed the unfair rule to persist.”

Gallagher and other opponents of the rule prohibiting boats with motors larger than 10 horsepower during the summer months hope a bill introduced by Sen. Swati Dandekar, D-Marion, will end what they consider an injustice.

Dandekar's bill, Senate File 54, would amend state law to allow operation of boats with motors exceeding 10 horsepower at any time on Lake Macbride.

Noting that Macbride is the only state lake with the horsepower restriction, which runs from the Friday before Memorial Day through Labor Day, Dandekar said, “It should have the same rules as other public lakes.”

While the Department of Natural Resources sets the rules for all other state lakes, the Legislature has carved out an exception for Lake Macbride, a 940-acre constructed lake four miles west of Solon.

“Let the DNR do what's right. That makes sense, and it's fair,” Dandekar said.

DNR fisheries biologist Paul Sleeper, who manages Macbride, said the DNR would prefer consistent rules on all state lakes of 100 or more acres - no wake allowed and no motor size restrictions.

Sleeper, who has been at Macbride since 1988, said bills like Dandekar's have been introduced in nearly every session of the Legislature but get bottled up in committee.

“I suspect that's because people with nice homes on Lake Macbride want to keep boats off the lake,” said Robert Schlegel, 73, of Marion, one of several Eastern Iowans who encouraged Dandekar to introduce the bill.

A belief that boats with larger motors are more likely to violate the no-wake rule is central to the arguments in favor of the status quo.

“You do associate bigger motors with bigger wakes,” said Rep. Nate Willems, whose House District 29 includes Solon and much of the lake.

“That's like saying Cadillac drivers are more likely to speed in a school zone than Toyota drivers. It's the driver, not the vehicle,” Schlegel said.

Steven Becicka, 41, of Oxford, who has written dozens of legislators encouraging their support of Dandekar's bill, said the rule is a convenient way “to keep others off Macbride” so lake residents can continue to enjoy their “taxpayer-funded recreational oasis.”

Rep. Mary Mascher, whose House District 77 includes much of Iowa City, said the rule does not prohibit anyone from using the lake.

“If you really want to fish it, use a smaller motor,” she said.

Mascher said the special rule is justified because Macbride is a special lake.

“The people who live there created the lake, and the state took it over later,” said Mascher, implying that their long-term relationship conveys a proprietary interest in a state-owned lake that has been rehabilitated during the past decade with more than $2 million in public funds.

“The uses of Iowa's lakes should not all be the same,” she said.

Mascher said Macbride is heavily used during the summer by sailboats, canoes and kayaks - recreational activities that she believes would be impeded by fishing boats powered with motors larger than 10 horsepower.

Mascher, Willems and Sen. Joe Bolkcom, who represents District 39, which includes most of Iowa City, all recommend that boaters excluded from Macbride run their boats on nearby Coralville Lake.

Even if “separate but equal” arguments had not already been discredited in most other public policy contexts, Coralville and Macbride are hardly equal, proponents of the rule change say.

While Macbride is clean, safe and an excellent fishery, Coralville, an impoundment of the often-flooding Iowa River, is the opposite, Gallagher said.

“We feel like we're being gypped - not getting to fish public water that our money has helped to improve,” said Thad Takes, president of the Cedar Rapids Bassmasters.

Takes said there is no valid reason for the rule, which he called unfair and bound up in politics.

“It's really about limiting the number of people who get to use the lake,” he said.