City Council Approves Crystal Lake Boat Fee Hike To Address Weeds

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL — The Crystal Lake City Council voted in favor of a hefty boat fee increase Tuesday night that will pay for services to kill off weeds in Crystal Lake, including Milfoil.

If left unchecked, the weeds could "destroy the lake ecology," according to consultants hired by the city to study the problem.

Non-motorized boats on Crystal Lake will continue to pay a $20 fee, which remained unchanged by Tuesday's city council vote. But for all motorized boats, fees will go up and could mean more than a 500 percent increase for some boat owners.

The higher the horsepower on the boat, the higher the cost for the annual boat decal under a new "ecology component" of the fees. This means the owner of a boat with a motor that has 200 or more horsepower would go from paying a $30 fee to a $200 fee, which is a 567 percent increase, according to city officials.

On Tuesday, the city council, after a lengthy debate, approved the following fee increases in a 2-5 vote:

The increase in fees could bring in an additional $57,915 and $72,195 for the city, according to city officials.

The funds would go toward a three-year weed treatment strategy aimed at addressing the invasive weed growth on Crystal Lake. The treatment plan would include the cost for weed treatment, spring harvesting, mid-summer harvesting and professional consultation from Hey & Associates.

Hey & Associates was contracted by the city of Crystal Lake and Crystal Lake Park District to look at the weed growth on Crystal Lake and come up with a plan to address it.

The Crystal Lake Advisory Committee, which was formed in 2019 and made up of 12 members who reside on the lake or in the neighborhoods surrounding the lake, also assisted in the effort and provided its recommendations after working with Hey & Associates over several years.

The rapid growth of weeds, especially in the past three years, has "seriously hindered swimming and boating in most ares of the lake," and is especially bad 50 to 60 yards out from Main Beach and on the west end, south shore and north shore of the lake, according to the committee's proposal on changes needed to address the weed growth.

According to Hey & Associates, if left unchecked, the non-native invasive species found in the lake, especially the Milfoil,"will destroy the lake ecology including the fish and other living species in the lake."

The Milfoil naturally spreads around the lake once established, and large pockets of Milfoil can be found in every part of the lake and "in many places are so thick they can choke an outboard engine and cause it to stall."

Bigger boats cause more weeds, councilor Denise Smith said during Tuesday's meeting. And therefore she thinks the higher fees for higher-horsepower boats is fair.

"Some of these bigger boats do not belong on a 250-acre lake, they belong on Lake Geneva. And if it wasn't for those boats I don't think there would be the stress there is to clean up the lake like there is now," she said.

Crystal Lake has not raised its fees in ten years, she added. Meanwhile, the nearby Fox Waterway Agency requires a $250 fee for its bigger boats and Lake Zurich charges $240.

Last year, the Crystal Lake park District spent $15,000 on treatment for the invasive specials and an additional $9,000 for general weed treatments, according to the Crystal Lake Advisory Committee proposal.

"The cursory efforts proved too small and ineffective to stop the weeds from choking the lake," according to the proposal.

Last year, the Crystal Lake City Council voted down a similar fee. But after "seeing the effort the park district has made," the majority of councilors on Tuesday agreed it was time to move forward to take action to protect the "gem" of Crystal Lake and the city's "namesake."

The park district will use the lake ecology fee to pay for consultants, a weed harvester and direct treatment of Milfoil and other invasive weed spaces. The treatments will be applied by authorized specialists in varying areas of the lake as needed based on plans developed by the park district, according to the city documents.

In the past, the decal fees solely covered the cost for enforcing safety on Crystal Lake under an intergovernmental agreement between the city of Crystal Lake and the village of Lakewood. The municipalities used the decal revenue to pay staff salaries for the patrol of the lake and purchase patrol and safety supplies, such as watercraft and navigation buoys, according to city documents.