MARINETTE COUNTY, WI ( WTAQ-WLUK) – Boats are temporarily being turned away from a popular beach in Marinette County.
No boat signs went up this week at Twin Bridge Campground, just outside of Crivitz. The beach is located on the High Falls Flowage, which is part of the Peshtigo River.
On a Saturday, 10 to 20 boats are typically pulled up on the beach. For the next month, you might not find any.
“On a weekend it’s kind of a zoo out here and that is a nice spot,” said Brett Erdmann of Green Bay, who has had a cottage in the area his whole life.
“Not being able to go there, you’re sort of just stuck out in the middle floating around.”
For the first time this year, the county buoyed off a swim area for beach visitors, taking away about a third of the area boaters could normally pull up to.
Erdmann tells FOX 11 he’s a little confused.
“They have the big swimming beach where you can just swim and boats aren’t allowed right next door to it, so I guess I’m not sure why they did that.”
Pete Villas, the forestry and parks administrator for Marinette County, tells FOX 11 things changed earlier this month.
“It seemed to be working really well since we started this back in May is when it kicked in, when the park season started, and all of a sudden we get to July 5th, 4th and 5th, that weekend or that stretch and into that weekend, where all of a sudden the swim buoys were disappearing.”
The buoys have been moved five times since the 4th of July. Villas believes someone in a boat is moving them because they’re mad about the smaller boat area.
“We got them anchored down, so somebody has to actually physically move them.”
Villas says they plan to keep boats off the beach for 30 days as punishment.
“We don’t want it to be a permanent thing. At this point, it’s not a permanent thing.”
Villas says he has received a few calls since the no boat signs went up. He wants to hear from more people if they either know who is moving the buoys or they have a solution that would make the county comfortable in taking the signs back down.
“If they have ideas, I want to hear them.”
“It’s a bummer that it’s gone, but hopefully they can figure it out,” said Erdmann.
Increasing the park’s popularity, Twin Bridge has the only beach in the county where dogs are allowed.
