ENFIELD — Officials have removed a floating swim raft from the town’s beach on Mascoma Lake after the flotation device was repeatedly displaced, according to a post on the town’s Public Works webpage.
There has not been a lifeguard for the beach for at least four years, Enfield Town Manager Ed Morris said, because the town has struggled to find applicants.
Town officials made the decision to pull the swim raft, in part, because they do not have the capacity to monitor it.
“Our part in the swim raft saga so far this year has been recovering it twice more than a mile down the lake when hooligans have either pushed it off the shore or released it from its anchor in the lake,” Enfield Department of Public Works Director Jim Taylor said in an email.
A tipping point came Tuesday morning when town officials discovered that a picnic table had been placed on top of the raft floating in the lake.
“I am down to one guy doing cemetery and park maintenance, and we really can’t afford to be wasting his time correcting these ‘practical jokes’,” Taylor wrote.
The Enfield Police Department has not received any vandalism reports, Chief Luke Frye said. The beach does not have security cameras. Enfield patrol officers plan to increase patrols in the area, especially at night.
“If some of our DPW guys have to go chase a raft tow, they’re getting paid their time and benefits for that. And then they’re not getting other work done that needs to be done,” Morris said Tuesday in a phone interview. “It’s taking taxpayer money to pay for it.”
Each year around Memorial Day, officials install the raft off the shore on Shakoma Beach, located on the corner of Main Street and Route 4A on Mascoma Lake, Morris said.
“We know it stinks for everyone who uses it correctly, but we can’t continue to have staff time used multiple times in the past few weeks just to chase this down and reconnect it,” Morris said. “Maybe whoever is doing that can start respecting town property.”
The raft is connected to an anchor at the bottom of the lake, outside a swim area that’s cordoned off by buoys. It stays out until around Labor Day.
The person — or persons — who have displaced the raft appear to be disconnecting it from a rope that ties it to the anchor, Morris said, adding that he’s not sure about the water’s depth where the raft is typically placed.
“I’m not sure if it will go back this year,” Morris said, adding that town officials are considering solutions to put the raft back out. “We’ll be looking into some things, but I don’t know when or what we’ll do.”
