Lake Wylie officers know an answer is out there. One group aims to help them find it.

Officers on Lake Wylie know it’s an issue worth fixing. It’s just a matter of how big a fix they want to pursue.

“As far as jurisdiction goes, that’s a complicated issue,” said 1st Sgt. Jason Plemmons with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

In July, Sgt. William Laton with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission brought a concern to the Lake Wylie Marine Commission that officers already knew well. The commission decided to set up a task force looking at how law enforcement officers can better patrol a lake often bisected by a state line. How officers can do their jobs without violators simply heading to the other state at the sight of their boats.

“A judge would laugh at me, and people are learning that,” Plemmons said of trying to write a ticket in North Carolina waters. “They’re seeing the blue lights and heading to the other state.”

Plemmons and others spoke with the marine commission when it met again this month, and planned to talk again before the commission next meets Sept. 25. Looking for answers at the interstate, state or local levels.

“Reasonable people would say, this doesn’t make sense,” said marine commissioner Neil Brennan, who is heading up the task force effort.

Ideas come, big and small. The marine commission can’t change the state line or jurisdiction rules. It can make lake-specific laws. Certain rules vary, like one stating a North Carolina resident arrested on the water has to post cash bond on site or go to jail. A South Carolina resident doesn’t. One idea is to uniform the rules across Lake Wylie, regardless of state.

“Then it doesn’t matter (which officer stops someone), because it applies to the whole lake,” Brennan said.

Whether someone violated a certain rule may not matter, but officers say where the boat is stopped still does.

“Where the issue comes is, if I go into North Carolina and write a ticket in North Carolina, no North Carolina court is going to take my charging document,” said Sgt. Brent Mabry with the York County Sheriff’s Office.

For major crimes, South Carolina can pursue into North Carolina. But an officer watching a crime or violation across the water, if that distance includes the state line, creates a problem.

“That would be a problem,” Plemmons said.

The task force talked about putting an officer from each state on boats. On high lake use events, like July 4 or Memorial Day, boats from each state could host an officer from the neighboring one. That way an officer from the state where the boat is stopped could write the ticket, regardless.

Another idea involves changing state laws to allow officers on Wylie to enforce laws lake-wide. Still another solution could be modeled after agreements on hunting and fishing laws.

The Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact began three decades ago in response to people violating wildlife and resource laws outside their home states. Someone from a member state can be charged the same way a resident of the member state where the incident occurred would. Violations in one state could mean revoked or never issued licenses in others. As of June, the only two states weren’t involved in the compact and one — Massachusetts — had pending legislation to join.

It doesn’t cover boating violations. Three years ago, however, South Carolina followed Georgia in participating in an Interstate Boating Violator Compact. That agreement allows member states to suspend boating privileges for outstanding violations in other member states. Using the wildlife compact as a model could get more states aboard the boating compact, which could help on Wylie.

“We’re trying to build that same thing for boating, and get more states involved,” Plemmons said.

While hunting and fishing involve licenses that could be revoked, suspended or never issued due to incidents in other states, boating is different.

“Most states don’t require a boating license, so there’s nothing to suspend,” Plemmons said. “But we can suspend their boating privileges.”

Catawba Riverkeeper Sam Perkins deals with environmental issues rather than law enforcement ones, but he told the marine commission boating enforcement is similar to many issues facing Wylie. From how fishing licenses work to notification between states when a sewage spill occurs, he said, to issues like buffer protections.

“This is one of those big issues,” Perkins said. “This is a larger question that needs to be resolved.”

Often getting both states together on an issue involves considerable public input. Earlier this year North Carolina legislators had a bill proposed that would have eliminated buffers along lakes and rivers. Outcry ensued. Even in South Carolina, where state and local candidates in Lake Wylie spoke of doing what they could to protect buffers.

Perkins said short of the amoeba issue at the U.S. National Whitewater Center last year, where a teen died and the center was found to have a dangerous amoeba in its waters linked to the death, he hasn’t seen as much public interest on an issue as he has the potential buffer repeal. Which led to change.

“We are not concerned about the buffer repeal at this time,” Perkins said.

Legislators heard concerns and changed the proposal. While the bills still exist, the part about removing buffers no longer does, Perkins said.

“The repeal of the buffers is gone,” he said. “I tell people you can look at it as 95 to 100 percent defeated.”

It may be unlikely a public swell of support comes in for allowing officers more freedom to write tickets on the lake. Officers say the issue is one of public safety, not just adding to their ticket count. Brennan said he will work with them as long as they want on how to find a fix that will stand up in court, and work for both states.

“If we work with law enforcement and counsel, maybe we can find something to where we can solve this ourselves right here,” Brennan said.

Agencies routinely patrolling Lake Wylie include the York County Sheriff’s Office and South Carolina Department of Natural Resources on the South Carolina side, and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission along with Mecklenburg and Gaston counties in North Carolina. The U.S. Coast Guard also runs patrols during peak boating times.

This story was originally published September 21, 2017 at 1:38 PM with the headline "Lake Wylie officers know an answer is out there. One group aims to help them find it.."