Lakes at Stake Guarding the Henhouse

Lakes at Stake Guarding the Henhouse

Welcome to the Lakes at Stake Newsletter. We are a nonprofit volunteer organization dedicated to protecting Wisconsin’s glacial lakes from the damaging impacts of wakesurfing. In this issue we’ll talk about what goes on behind the scenes in Madison with lobbying and how we must all stay vigilant going forward.

We have demonstrated we can hold serve against the powerful wakeboat lobby, but we need your financial support to stay on the playing field in 2026.

Let’s Go!

Madison — What We’re up Against

We are deeply grateful for your voices and support throughout the last legislative session. It took two years of sustained effort to create the conditions needed to stop the bad bill (SB 1025/AB 1033) and to help move forward a good bill (SB 1024/AB 1045). Your engagement made a real difference!

We still need your financial support to keep Lakes at Stake lobbyists active in Madison to ensure the “fox stays out of the henhouse.” The Wisconsin wakeboat market is simply too lucrative for the industry to back off their lobbying efforts. And they are still present in Madison on a daily basis. Lobbying never stops, even when the legislature is out of session.

Lobbying Expenditures in 2025 – David versus Goliath

The Wisconsin Ethics Commission requires all lobbyists to file reports of their compensation on a six-month basis. We do not yet have the numbers for the first half of 2026 as those will come in July, but we do have numbers for calendar year 2025.

Let’s start with the bad guys first:

Water Sports Industry Association (WSIA):

For the past three years WSIA has engaged the Schreiber GR Group in Madison to lobby on their behalf. Based on the Ethics filings, WSIA paid Schreiber a total of $90,000 for calendar year 2025.

National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA)

For calendar year 2025 the NMMA paid Schreiber GR Group a total of $60,000 for their services.

Wisconsin Watersports Coalition (WWC)

WWC is a group of wakeboat owners who hired the firm of Michael Best Strategies and paid that firm $66,000 for calendar year 2025.

That is a total of $216,000 spent in calendar year 2025 working towards getting bad wakesurf legislation introduced. We’ll collectively call them ‘Goliath.’

Note that these numbers do not include  political contributions made by the same industrial players involved. Some of these are noted in public records but many are not, as they go to political action committees (PAC’s).

Now for the good guys (‘David’):

Lakes at Stake Wisconsin (LASW)

We at LASW have been working with SJL Government Affairs and Communications and for calendar year 2025 your donations covered their cost of $48,000.

Just on that basis, the bad guys outspent the good guys by a factor of 450% or 4.5 times in 2025. Our lobbying team did an amazing job educating legislators on the wakesurfing issue and making sure the sentiments of tens of thousands of Wisconsinites were conveyed.

Long story short, we’re grateful for the ability to so far hold off Goliath while not having anywhere near the financial resources that the wakeboat industry has been able to deploy in Madison.

In other states where citizens have not been able to retain lobbyists, WSIA has been able to go in and essentially write their own laws. A current example of this is taking place in Kentucky right now.

The Kentucky Fish & Wildlife Resources Commission had proposed a regulation preventing wakesurfing on a number of smaller Kentucky lakes. The wakeboat industry lobby charged into Kentucky to make sure such protective regulations were not enacted. Their legislature then passed a bill that will override those Fish & Wildlife Resource Commission regulations. Governor Andy Beshear (D) signed it into law on April 10th.

It’s important to note that the legislation included multiple provisions, so it was not solely focused on wakesurfing. However, the wakeboat lobby managed to quietly add their amendment to the bill. This is how effective lobbyists work and why we need our lobbying counterweight in Wisconsin.

In Connecticut last summer, the voters in the towns surrounding Lake Waramaug overwhelmingly voted to prohibit wake surfing on Lake Waramaug. The wakeboat industry immediately sprang into action and has been working to get their “200 foot” statewide bill introduced along with throwing out the local ordinance enacted for Lake Waramaug. The Lake Waramaug residents chose to hire a professional lobbyist to represent their interests and so far have been able to hold off the bad WSIA 200 foot bill.

Wisconsin and 2026
Our fight did not end this past February. We’re already hearing about WSIA continuing to work our legislators this month at different fundraising events. The wakeboat industry will work daily in 2026 to court Wisconsin legislators. The goal? Get the bad bill once again introduced in January of 2027.

And while the GOP controlled both houses of the Wisconsin legislature this past session,  lobbyists are always working both sides of the aisle (see Kentucky above, who has a Democratic Governor that signed into law the wakeboat industry bill).

This is why we are making a public appeal for funding now. We want to continue to be the watchdog in Madison for you.  And not just a watchdog, but working to get a beneficial good bill introduced that will protect Wisconsin’s natural resources. If we are able to get a good bill passed in 2027 we can end this fight once and for all. 

This is why the introduction of the good bill (and getting a Senate Committee hearing on SB 1024) this past session was so important. We have the momentum on our side.

David CAN beat Goliath here in Wisconsin. But we are not able to do it without funding for our efforts in Madison. We’ve demonstrated we can hold serve with your help while being massively outspent. 

Please consider making a donation today by clicking the button below. Let’s protect our Wisconsin glacial lakes and rivers!

Important Election Results from East Troy, WI

For the past two years, a number of East Troy residents have been working to protect the Town’s lakes from environmental damage and hazardous impacts associated with wakesurfing.

The community made its voice clear at the Town’s annual meeting in April 2025. Citizens overwhelmingly voted to ask the Town Board to ban wakesurfing on all lakes within the Town. While this vote was advisory and not a binding referendum, it demonstrated strong public support for action.

To better understand the impacts of wakesurfing, the Lake Beulah Management District authorized extensive testing on Lake Beulah last summer. The results showed that protecting shorelines and lake bottoms would require wakesurfing to take place at least 500 feet from shore and in water at least 25 feet deep.

Despite these developments, the East Troy Town Board was reluctant to take action. Several ideas were presented—including the creation of two buoy-marked wake sports zones—but so far, no steps have been taken. As a result of this inaction and ignoring the voice of the people, two challengers entered the race for the two Town Board seats up for this spring’s election.

We’re pleased to report that challengers Brian Fons and Ben Smith each won a seat on the Board.  Brian has been a strong advocate for Town Board leadership on the wakesurfing issue. We’ll be watching closely to see how the Board moves forward following this change in composition.

It is important to recognize that the challengers’ success was not the result of a sudden or impulsive shift, but rather the outcome of sustained efforts by the group Protect Lake Beulah, the grass roots team who ran a  “Big Waves Hurt Lakes” campaign and the newly formed East Troy Action Alliance (ETAA) to support Ben and Brian in the election. All these teams devoted countless hours going door-to-door and educating residents about the impacts of wakesurfing.

Given the large number of wakeboats on Lake Beulah—as well as frequent visiting boats—the effort initially seemed like an uphill battle. However, through strong community outreach and education, East Troy voters ultimately delivered a clear message: they want their lakes protected.

Every time a wakeboat issue has gone to a public vote, the outcome has been overwhelmingly in favor of protecting our lakes. With each passing year our side gains momentum. It is not our goal to ban wakesurfing, but rather to ensure the sport takes place on lakes large enough and deep enough so that shorelines, lake bottoms and other lake users are not negatively impacted.

LAKES AT STAKE WISCONSIN

We deeply appreciate your support in protecting our glacial lakes. As a bipartisan volunteer group, your donations fund our educational efforts statewide and our lobbying in Madison. Visit lakesatstake.org to learn more.