A planned wake surfing competition that was to be part of Lumberjack Days in Stillwater next weekend has been cancelled. The Minnesota Wake Surf Championship organization announced the news yesterday, saying high water levels are to blame.

The organizers had been waiting for the water to drop before the Washington County Sheriff’s Office could review their permit application.

“The Water Patrol cannot issue a permit until the water levels are below the no-wake threshold,” wrote organizer Jeremy Wahlberg. “Additionally, the Watershed District has raised concerns about shoreline conditions due to the prolonged flooding. As a result, even if water levels drop significantly, there is no guarantee that the permit will be approved in time.”

High water woes

No wakes are allowed on the lower St. Croix when the water level is above 683 feet above sea level. The water level at Stillwater is currently at 683.7 feet and is not expected to drop below 683 feet until Sunday morning, July 14. That would be five days before the planned start of the competition.

One watershed district administrator with jurisdiction over the St. Croix, Matt Oldenburg-Downing of the Middle St. Croix Watershed Management Organization, said he had not been contacted by event organizers, but had concerns about hosting the event in such conditions.

“Wake during high water can have profound impact for erosion as the water is reaching places that are not normally wet,” said Oldenburg-Downing. “A concentrated event such as this would almost certainly damage shorelines and result in sedimentation into the river. It can also exacerbate damage to infrastructure that is not designed to be inundated, possibly even to that which is designed for it.”

Although there won’t be any official wake surf events, organizers said they still plan to hold off-water events, including vendor booths and a party at River Siren Brewery. Some social media users also said they’re still interested in wake surfing on the St. Croix that weekend, even if the competition has been called off.

Problematic pastime

The Wake Surf Competition was approved as an addition to Lumberjack Days by the Stillwater city council on June 18. It would have seen the competition taking place on the river near Lowell Park from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. all three days of the festival weekend.

Wake surfing has been increasingly controversial as it has rapidly grown in popularity in the last several years. The wakes the boats create not only carry the surfers, but also damage shorelines and docks, aquatic habitat, and other boats.

Large wakes were the most common problem reported by Minnesota boaters in a 2020 report from the Department of Natural Resources. Wake surfing was reported as a problem by 24 percent of respondents. The activity has been a hot topic everywhere from the state legislature to local governments and lake associations.

A 2022 study released by the University of Minnesota found that the wakes from wake surf boats take up to 500 feet to decrease their wake size to that of a typical boat. Advocates have pushed for requirements that the boats stay 300 to 600 feet from shore and other boaters.

The boats used for wake surfing have ballast tanks that are filled with water, adding hundreds of pounds of weight that cause the boat to displace more water and make bigger wakes. Rarely fully drained and dried, ballast water tanks can carry invasive species like zebra mussels or spiny waterflea, or fish disease, from one body of water to another. A 2021 study from the University of Minnesota found that ballast tanks were the most likely place to find zebra mussel larvae on a boat.