"Pride of Cumberland" Chipper is a SAFETY Hazard to Boaters!

[PolymerMan]

What has ruined several of our vacation weekends is the wood chipper that makes it unsafe to boat around Conley Bottom Marina. Too many times we have become stranded because of the chips getting clogged in our jet skis and house boat intakes. We have had issues with the floating chips hitting tubers in the face when being pulled. This has gone on for TOO LONG with the plumes of chips floating around Conley Bottom in peak season. I have watched jet ski after jet ski limping back to shore to be pulled out because of these chips. We need to hear your voices on eliminating this hazard at our beloved Lake Cumberland!

I understand the need to remove the wood from the lake to reduce risks of damage to boats and even more importantly reducing the risk of injuries to people. With that said we are reducing the chance of one type of hazard and creating a whole new safety hazard on the lake because of floating chips and this new safety hazard should be no more tolerable. In looking at past complaints about the chipper, folks have argued about the cost to fix broken jet skies and engines but what is a much bigger concern is for the safety of boaters in general. Jet skis are generally used to shuttle folks between houseboats and marinas in cases of emergencies and most owned house boats are owned by folks nearing or already in retirement. Hitting one of the plumes of chips can cause you to get stranded in an emergency situation. One doctor who owns a houseboat at Conley Bottom was unable to reach the Marina for an emergency call because of these small chips. As I have mentioned, there are also reports of kids tubing and getting hit in the face with the chips. One chip directly in the eye of a tuber going 35 MPH is going to lead to one of our children becoming blinded.

I am not sure why they need to chip wood into the water near the busiest marina during the busiest time of year. I have talked with the marinas and they push blame on the US Corp of Engineers who owns/runs the chipper barge (The Pride of Cumberland). In calling the Corp of Engineers in Somerset (606-679-6337) they said they needed to run all year because they only have one barge and over 1200 miles of shore line. This is clearly being mis-managed as they could easily chip near less populated parts of the lake in the peak boating months of May through September. They admit that they can't keep up so why not focus 100% of their effort between October thru April on the busiest parts of the lake.

Or here is the best idea.......use that barge that has a crane on it to load the logs on the barge and take them to somewhere OFF THE LAKE TO BE CHIPPED!!! Conley Bottom has evidently even proposed this same idea to the US Corps and said they would even help transport the logs elsewhere but nothing ever came of it. Surely there are businesses that would buy these dried chips for landscaping for fuel for stoves.

Please speak up to your marinas and the US Corps as this safety hazard should not be tolerated on Lake Cumberland!!! It does explain why I continue to hear folks leaving this lake and going to other lakes close by.

Again: Corp of Engineers in Somerset (606-679-6337) - file your complaint.

Also, please post you concerns and experiences with boater safety being compromised by wood chips! The more hard facts that we give the better chance we have of changing things.

[E_]

They would be unloading all the time if they went back with a load of logs. Logs are much more dangerous to people and property compared to chips. I do agree it has become a nuisance to many but I would have to see them slowed down or to stop chipping. jmo

This was a really bad year for the logs... They make debris gates for the jet skis and that may help? TO reduce the logs being chipped they could send the prisoners down from the local jails and have them stack and burn debris on the shore through the year...

[Captain Bob]

I may be mistaken but didn't that stupid design of a boat used to have a large container on the "barge" where the chips were collected (and dumped onshore -instead of blown into the lake)? Seems that the under-sized design required "too many trips to the shore" or some such thing.

It still gripes me that some incompetent exec (I didn't say "stupid") within the US Corps of Engineers bureaucracy chose to have that tiny rig built out-of-state (somewhere along the Gulf as I remember) and hauled to Kentucky. If they had known anything about -or cared about- Lake Cumberland, they would have had one of the local houseboat manufacturers design (and build) a useful vessel that would be able to clear the lake of debris much more efficiently. At least the locals would know that spitting tons of wood chips into the lake would be a bad idea.

[E_]

True

[re3too]

Holy crap, Captain Bob! That would make too much sense! You have to leave these decisions to the edumacated ones!

[E_]

Posted on our FB Page
Dan Argo From the corps...
The debris removal vessel, "The Pride of the Cumberland," has been in operation every week since March and will be working this weekend to continue debris removal operations. The total debris removed for 2015 include 4,165 yards of woody debris chipped, 2,610 yards of large woody debris stacked to burn, 6,775 yards of total woody debris removed, 37.5 miles covered, 219 yards of man-made debris to include 223 tires.

[Pop-O]

Anyone that has been on Cumberland for any length of time knows this POS is a TOTAL waste of time and money.