Alcohol ban coming at Cottage Grove, Dorena lakes

COTTAGE GROVE — Note to those who like to enjoy a “cold one” on hot summer days at either Cottage Grove or Dorena lakes: Better make the most of it this summer, because next year all alcohol will be banned at the two reservoirs and their federally run campgrounds.

Effective Jan. 1, 2011, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will prohibit the possession of alcoholic beverages at all corps-owned land and on the water at the Cottage Grove and Dorena reservoirs, the agency announced Tuesday.

The ban is partly experimental, prompted in part because of alcohol-related problems at the lakes, and largely because of depleted staffing because of county, state and federal budget cuts, the agency said.

Problems with litter, vandalism, injuries and late-night disturbances contributed to the decision, said Tami Schroeder, a supervisory park ranger for the corps in Cottage Grove.

“And we believe a lot of those are related to alcohol,” she said.

The two lakes, each roughly a four-mile drive east from Interstate 5, are popular not just with residents from the immediate Cottage Grove area, but with boaters, campers and other recreation seekers from a broad swath of the lower Willamette Valley.

The proposed ban didn’t impress Dustin Williams of Cottage Grove, who was fishing and sipping a beer at Cottage Grove Lake Tuesday afternoon. “There would be a lot more tickets or a lot less people” with a ban in effect, Williams predicted.

Williams said his family has been fishing the local waters for six generations. “That’s the only thing that everyone does down here — drink beer and catch fish.”

Schroeder said the corps’ Willamette Valley Project staff has been depleted in recent years. The agency used to have a couple of park rangers who worked both Cottage Grove Lake and the larger Dorena Lake in the summer, as well as two staffers at Fern Ridge Lake, two at Lookout Point and Dexter lakes, and two in the Sweet Home area at Foster and Green Peter lakes, Schroeder said.

Now, all of the rangers for the entire lower valley are staffed in the Cottage Grove Lake office, Schroeder said. And on a typical summer day, three or four of them are responsible for monitoring the campgrounds and day use areas at 13 reservoirs and dams that are all part of the corps’ Willamette River basin district, she said.

There are no plans to ban alcohol from the other 11 reservoirs, spokeswoman Amy Echols said.

“Right now, we’re starting with those two (lakes) and see what kind of results we get,” Echols said. “Over the course of the last few years, the (park) rangers have been trying to figure out how to make things safer.”

The corps receives assistance from the Lane County Sheriff’s Office — whose staff also has been reduced in recent years — at the reservoirs’ parks, Echols said. That has left the corps trying to figure out how to improve recreation services at the reservoirs with less law enforcement, she said.

“We had a vocal population of campers who brought issues to our attention,” Echols said of complaints tied to Cottage Grove and Dorena lakes, “and it was time to take a look at what we could do to improve the experience for everyone.”

Dustin Bengtson, operations project manager for the corps’ Willamette Valley Project, said in a statement that the ban will allow the agency to focus its limited resources “on providing safe and enjoyable recreation rather than dealing with issues caused or aggravated by alcohol possession and consumption. We also think this will improve public and employee safety since the consumption of alcohol is a factor in the majority of incidents and water-related accidents.”

Park rangers will educate visitors on the new restriction during the 2010 recreation season. The corps will post notices throughout the parks, distribute written material to visitors and include ban information on park reservation and corps Web sites.

Once the order is effective on Jan. 1, corps rangers and law enforcement officers will enforce it through oral warnings and written citations. Violators will be subject to a fine of up to $500 and/or eviction under county ordinance or federal regulations.

Lane County Parks also will implement the ban at facilities at Dorena Lake.

Register-Guard photographer Kevin Clark contributed to this report.