Troubled Waters : Reduced Patrols, Lax Boating Laws Stir Concerns at Pyramid Lake

With the boating season just moving into high gear, three people have already died from accidents at Pyramid Lake, a popular recreation spot 35 miles north of the San Fernando Valley.

Some residents, citing cutbacks in lake patrols and permissive laws that allow almost anyone, regardless of age or ability, to operate boats there, say that the tragedies were not unexpected.

“People I’ve talked to say they don’t even go up to that lake anymore because it’s dangerous,” said Brenda Emery, 33, of Canyon Country. “It’s out of control.”

Emery’s friend, Albert Sifuentes, 22, died April 30 when his jet ski collided with a fishing boat driven by a man who was later charged with reckless boating. Two other people died the same day when an unexpectedly high wake sunk their boat.

Under state and federal laws, a child as young as 12 can legally operate a motorized boat at a publicly owned lake. “If you’re 12 years old, you can drive anything on this lake unsupervised, and a lot of them have no idea what the rules of the road are,” said Paul Hardy, one of two sheriff’s deputies who patrol the lake.

Regulations are lax, he said, because the “government looks at this as a recreational sport and they don’t want to interfere with your right to have a good time.”

But Hardy said he believes if boaters were better trained, it would go a long way toward cutting down on dangers at the lake. “It’s not an unsafe lake,” he said. “It’s just that people don’t always realize they’re in a liquid environment.”

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Boaters are often not as familiar as they should be with safety equipment, he said. On a recent weekend patrol, most of the boaters he and partner Mark Shoemaker encountered had no formal training. One man who was stopped during the day had a warning flag of the wrong color and a life jacket too large for the youngest child on board.

“The ski flag, that’s negotiable,” Hardy told the man. “The life jacket with him, that’s not negotiable. We’ve had three deaths out here recently and the safety equipment figured in at least some of them.”

Emery is circulating a petition calling for tougher rules. She wants required safety education for boaters, paramedics assigned to lake duty and jet skis restricted to one area.

The petition also asks that more deputies be assigned to patrol the lake. At one time, six deputies had that duty, but because of budget cuts, that number is now down to two.

“If they can’t afford more patrols, then they should only allow a certain number of people there,” Emery said. “They need a resolution to that rather than a bunch of excuses.”

Because of work obligations, Emery said she has not had much time to circulate the petition, which now has only 300 signatures. But she said that most lake users are willing to sign it, with the exception of one group. “Jet skiers are the ones who don’t want to sign the petition, because they don’t want to be restricted to a certain area,” she said.

Some of Emery’s requests are already being considered, according to sheriff’s officials.

Hardy said the Sheriff’s Department has developed a proposal to somewhat separate jet skis and boats. “We’re looking into possibly segregating or buoying a portion of the lake just for jet skis and buoying an area just for boats, but still leaving the middle part of the lake for jet skis and boats,” he said.

An application for a grant under the federal crime bill to fund four additional deputies at the lake has been requested by the department, said Lt. Bob Elson of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station. He said the additional deputies would perform safety inspections on arriving watercraft, patrol the lake and beach areas and assist during rescues when necessary.

Even if the federal grant is approved, however, it might not be awarded. The grants require that the county provide matching funds, noted Michael Quinn, captain of the Santa Clarita station, and currently, the county is planning on cutting rather than increasing the sheriff’s budget.

Hardy and Shoemaker patrol Pyramid Lake together for about eight hours on weekend days and holidays, during which the lake is open from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

The deputies patrol separately two weekdays each week, leaving one day during which the lake is totally unsupervised.

Shoemaker said he and Hardy are trained emergency medical technicians, but in a life-threatening situation it takes about 45 minutes for a helicopter to come to the lake and bring the injured person to a hospital.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

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Pyramid Lake Opened: 1974 Size: 1,400 surface acres, 20 miles of shoreline. Primary use: Drinking water source for San Fernando Valley. Recreational uses: Boating, jetskiing, fishing, swimming. Visitors a year: 200,000