Wakeboarding Research Paper

Wakeboarding Makes Waves of Impacts on Whitefish Lake I grew up spending time in nature and falling in love with it. In particular, I loved spending time on and around lakes. My favorite lake is Lower Whitefish Lake in Crosslake, MN which is part of the bigger Whitefish Chain of Lakes. I spend a lot of time in the summer waterskiing, wakeboarding, sailing, and canoeing on Whitefish and also swimming in it. I love to take in the natural, fairly untouched beauty of Whitefish. While I am enjoying the fact that whitefish is relatively unaltered by the humans, I am impacting the environment though. I have always loved the feeling that I get when I’m around Whitefish Lake. The feeling that I’m in pure nature that hasn’t been touched by humans. I feel clean after emerging from the lake water, whether it is after
I love to try all watersports that involve being pulled behind a boat including, waterskiing, wakeboarding, wakesurfing, wakeskating, barefoot waterskiing, trick skiing, tubing, and disking. All of these activities have a similar impact on the lake because of the boat that is pulling me, so I will talk about them from the general term of wakeboarding because it is my favorite of the activities. The speedboats used for wakeboarding emit hydrocarbons into the lake, the ground water, and the atmosphere (“Water skiing”). Gases and particulates escape from the engine and make their way into the lake water. Wakeboarding boats can also release potentially toxic heavy metals into the water (“Water skiing”). These chemical finds their way into fish swimming in the water and cause some fish to be dangerous to eat. Fish such as Bass, Walleye, and Northern Pikes in Whitefish Lake have unsafe levels of mercury in their tissue due to these chemicals (“Fisheries”). The emission of chemicals, gases, and metals by boats hurt the water and air supply around the