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You love them or you hate them. But would you lose your career over them, the way Kris Hasskamp did? The Rake revisits the tetchy subject of personal watercraft, just as our lightheaded governor pledges to drive one all the way to New Orleans.

Kris Hasskamp began her difficult crusade to regulate jet skiers five years ago with the noble intention of helping elderly retirees find a little silence in the great north woods where they had moved to escape the noise and traffic of the city, only to spend their summers irritated and isolated by the ceaseless noise of miniature powerboats circling their lakes for hours at a time. As a representative of the Brainerd area, she knew well how one of the state’s premiere vacation resort areas had become a cauldron of noise during the summer months.

With their concerns in mind, the House DFLer went to work crafting a modest piece of legislation that would eventually bring about the end of her political career and leave emotional scars that still sear. Although personal watercraft (PWCs) had been around commercially for more than 20 years—remember that first one in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me?—their design grew more sophisticated over the past decade as manufacturers moved from the rough-and-tumble standup models requiring a touch of balance and athleticism to sit-down models as easy to drive as a motor scooter. To lake visitors and residents, they had been a mild if tolerable nuisance until the recreation boom of the 1990s. Then the high-flying economy fueled a dramatic increase in PWC sales. Elderly folks reported trouble, in particular, with the noise of jet skis. One resident of Hasskamp’s district had constant summertime angina attacks caused, his doctors thought, by exposure to jet ski noise. Another moved after feeling the stress of noise was effecting his health. One couple tried to escape the PWC roar by cowering in their basement on weekends, when an influx of urban riders added to the cacophony of motorized boats. While seniors could suffer motorboat noise, since it tends to pass quickly on a lake, jet skiers have an annoying habit of going around and around in circles and jumping waves, creating a high volume of noise for hours on end.

“I was getting calls for several years about jet skis after I was elected in 1988,” Hasskamp says. “Part of the reason was the number of jet skis quadrupled in number in the state. Older people were coming to me in tears and angry about all the noise. And then when I heard threats from some residents that they were going to start shooting guns from docks at jet skiers I figured something had to be done.” Never one to shy from a fight and known for her theatrical flair, Hasskamp introduced a law in 1997 and played a tape of a chainsaw to let fellow legislators know just what a jet ski sounds like on a lake. A radio announcer and avid jet skier by the name of Jesse Ventura heard the chainsaw story and, angered by any regulatory efforts involving his favorite recreational vehicle (he owns six), dubbed her “Chainsaw Hasskamp,” a moniker that stuck.

In those Pre-Governor Ventura days, Hasskamp got support from then-Governor Arne Carlson, a majority of the public in polls conducted by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and many members of the Legislature. She lost on a couple of key issues, such as banning PWCs on lakes of fewer than 200 acres (jet skiers argued that would have put a majority of the state’s lakes off-limits) and a proposal to allow citizens to file complaints with the DNR against unruly riders. She did, however, manage to see some regulations passed. The new laws forced riders to abide by a150-foot no-wake zone near shore, they restricted PWC use to the hours between 9:30 a.m. and an hour before sunset, they required training of firms renting jet skis, and they imposed age restrictions on riders. The current state jet ski license carries all the state’s regulations printed right on it, so users have no excuse for not knowing them. While those laws may not seem particularly aggressive, they represented progress in a state where summer comes accompanied by the hum of mosquitoes and of jet skis, where one of their major manufacturers, Polaris Industries, resides, and where the governor loves them so much he plans to embark on a trip from the Twin Cities to New Orleans on one.

After being named a “public enemy” by the jet ski industry and the Jetsporters Association of Minnesota (JAM), Hasskamp lost her seat in the 2000 election. But her legislation worked. Jet ski complaints are down and lake owners appear pleased with greater respect riders have for other Minnesotans. The regs also started a small movement to begin to place limits on motorized watercraft in Minnesota through local control. If Hasskamp paid a steep price, the results have impressed even her. “There was going to be road rage on the water and there was great public demand for these laws. Polls both showed more than 90 percent of the public wanted jet ski regulations,” she says. “This is a story about legislation that actually worked.”


Illustration by Matt AdamsAs irritating as jet skis can be, there aren’t that many of them. Minnesota has 36,000 registered PWCs, a small number considering the state has 828,173 registered boats, the majority being fishing boats and powerboats. For such a small group of enthusiasts, they make a big noise on the lakes, but they don’t talk much to reporters. JAM’s insularity has been striking. After numerous voice mails to the organization and its president, Jim Robinson of Edina, The Rake could not get anyone to discuss JAM’s current lobby focus, its budget, the size of its membership, or to even wax eloquent on the joys of jet skiing—clearly a fun sport even to skeptics who have experienced the guilty thrill of operating a waterborne motorcycle.

The group’s silence may have something to do with its defeat of Hasskamp. She says it gave a great deal of money to her 2000 election opponent, Republican Dale Walz, who she figures spent around $150,000 on 13 mailings. JAM still brags on its website about the successful campaign against Hasskamp and features a letter from Walz thanking the group for its efforts. The election caught the attention of Rep. Matt Entenza (DFL-St. Paul), who charged last June that the tax-exempt JAM engaged in political activity. The state Campaign Finance Disclosure Board was unconvinced, ruling earlier this year that the evidence did not point to illegal politicking by JAM. In a separate ruling, the board compelled Walz to pony up $391.50, the amount he accepted from political party committees in excess of the $1,000 legal limit. (Entenza did not respond to repeated requests for comments on the ruling. Why is everyone so afraid to speak publicly about jet skis?)

Despite helping win the election for Walz, JAM still sees itself as a victim, misunderstood by the motorized recreation community and disdained by tree-huggers. The group’s “harassment” website section features an ancient article by Pete Balm that reads as a long screed against the new regulations. It relates an encounter with a DNR enforcement official, and offers a belabored argument against the basic unfairness of not requiring motorboats to follow the same laws as PWCs—the one argument even his critics might share. In any case, the libertarian argument against any restriction of any activity—as represented by JAM and similar pro-PWC ski special-interest groups—probably does not endear jet ski enthusiasts to other users of the state’s water resources.

Another anti-regulation group, the International Falls-based Borderline Boaters Association, is attempting to overturn the federal government’s ban on jet skis in Voyageurs National Park, which is part of a national effort now in place in most national parks. PWC enthusiasts have challenged in several states, losing every time. Nancy McHarg, the group’s president, says the ban unfairly singles out jet skis and has left Voyageurs entirely off-limits to PWCs. The government’s ban is not based on any studies or hard science and is largely the work of the Bluewater Network and the Wilderness Society. While labeling those perfectly reasonable organizations “radical environmental groups,” McHarg (unlike JAM) would accept the ban if scientific evidence could be provided showing that jet skis cause more damage than other motorized boats.

Critics say the vehicles do damage the environment. While newer PWCs have four-stroke and fuel-injected engines, older models, representing the majority of those still in service, release two times as much oil and gas pollution as a typical marine outboard of the same horsepower, according to a study by California’s Air Resources Board. In a typical two-hour ride a PWC dumps three to four gallons of gas and oil. The resources board estimates a full-day ride on a jet ski will create the same amount of air pollution as driving a car 100,000 miles. Other studies, hardly definitive, point to PWCs as affecting plant growth, sediment, and birds, although the study authors point out most of their findings also apply to motorboats.

Throw away all the studies and you still arrive at one conclusive fact: Silence has eroded, in some cases evaporated, on many Minnesota lakes. The idea of a relaxing weekend at the lake, where you can escape the noise and speed and rudeness of the city, has grown more extinct with each passing year. Jeff Brown recalls getting married a decade ago on a Faribault lake in a gorgeous silence which no longer exists. “You used to be able to go paddle a canoe or go on the pontoon boat anytime on the lake, but not anymore, not with the jet skis,” says Brown, the founder of Minnesotans For Responsible Recreation. “You can’t even sit on the deck there because it’s a stew of jet skis doing doughnuts on the shoreline. They’re supposed to stay 150 feet from the shoreline but often don’t. We can’t stand to be outside anymore. We’ve been driven from our own property. The noise is constant.”For all the whining PWC users still emit in response to the state’s meager regulations, they seem to have worked. “In just a couple of years the 150-foot rule probably answered the biggest amount of complaints we had,” says Fred Bliss, president of the Minnesota Lakes Association, an organization of 30,000 shore-owners. “There doesn’t seem to be as much complaining about them anymore. Jet skis are going to be here and as long as they conduct themselves in a sensible manner, there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much complaining.”

Observant PWC critics feel, for example, that manufacturers have quieted down the machines. Jet skis meet or exceed the state’s noise regulations, says Kim Elverum, the Department of Natural Resources’ boat and water safety coordinator. He says new PWCs will easily meet the federal government’s regulations regarding pollution discharge well in advance of a 2006 deadline. The state’s aggressive education and enforcement policy, such as sending an instructional videotape on jet ski regulations to users, and flying spotting planes over busy areas such as the St. Croix river, have contributed to better behavior on the part of PWC riders, he says. The state now has 8,000 more jet skis than in 1997 but accidents have dropped from 60 that year to 28 in 2001. Another welcome sign of relief is the slackening sales of PWCs, which Elverum says have plateaued and will increase much more gradually than in the past.

Politically, lakeowners and environmental activists know the current governor will not allow any further PWC legislation. On the other hand, the federal government appears less willing to cave to the motorized recreation lobby on federal lands and waters. Every challenge to the U.S. Park Service’s ban on jet skis in most national parks has been defeated, leaving Voyageurs and part of the St. Croix River free of them. Lakes inside state parks have speed limits of 10 mph, making jet skiing in them pointless.

So what’s next? Activists will begin plying a state that allows local municipalities to put their own surface management policies in place with the approval of the DNR. Marcia Shephard, associate editor of the newsletter Focus On The Waters, says townships in central Minnesota have begun to craft water management policy regulating all motorized craft, not just jet skis. For his part, the Minnesota Lakes Association’s Fred Bliss has been working hard in his own backyard. As a president of a regional lake association in Cass County, he’s trying to bring together enough local townships to ask the DNR to approve a no-wake zone within 150 feet of shoreline.

Not everyone thinks local control will work. Hasskamp sees local legislation as unlikely to pass since townships and small cities will balk at regulating jet skis and motorboats if the threat of a lawsuit appears likely. Considering the high volume motorized recreation’s lobbying and legal efforts to overturn the ban on jet skis in national parks, a small township may figure it will cost too much to battle opponents in court, she says.

Confrontation on the water is another tactic. When the law doesn’t work, an offended lake owner or canoeist can tell jet skiers to go away, and they often will.

For Jeff Brown of Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation, surface water management may save what little silence is left near water bodies in the state. Only 4.7 percent of lakes in the state have surface water management regulations of any type, leaving plenty of room for more efforts toward local control. Still, he figures what has been lost is lost for good. “Many of these lakes and rivers are sacred places that have become invaded by jet skis, motor boats, and ATVs,” he says. “It almost destroys your hope of ever finding quiet again in recreational areas. People are no longer sure where they can go anymore to find solace and silence.”