Friday Harbor Officials Help Sheriff’s Office Prosecute Trout Lake Trespassers

Trout Lake in 2020. Town of Friday Harbor, Contributed.

From the Town of Fri­day Harbor

There is a grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple tres­pass­ing in the Trout Lake Watershed.

The town of Fri­day Har­bor will assist the San Juan Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pros­e­cu­tion of these indi­vid­u­als. Cam­eras locat­ed through­out the water­shed have tak­en pho­tos of dozens of peo­ple walk­ing through the water­shed with­out authorization.

“Pho­to records show indi­vid­u­als walk­ing their dogs, rid­ing bikes and car­ry­ing fish­ing poles into this restrict­ed area,” said Town Admin­is­tra­tor Dun­can Wil­son. “No Tres­pass­ing signs are post­ed through­out the acreage that sur­rounds the Town’s water sup­ply, and yet our cam­eras con­tin­ue to catch peo­ple entering.”

Many of the pho­tos clear­ly show the faces of those enter­ing the water­shed and include pic­tures tak­en while the indi­vid­u­als are stand­ing next to the restric­tive signage.

“Most con­cern­ing is a series of pho­tos tak­en of an indi­vid­ual appar­ent­ly hunt­ing in the area, and you can see their rifle and they are dressed head to toe in cam­ou­flage cloth­ing,” Wil­son con­tin­ued. “Unless express­ly autho­rized, no one should be in the water­shed area. The dan­ger of hav­ing peo­ple in this area dur­ing the dry sum­mer months is seri­ous because of the high fire dan­ger. A fire in the water­shed would seri­ous­ly jeop­ar­dize the qual­i­ty of the Town’s drink­ing water, so we can­not tol­er­ate con­tin­ued tres­pass­ing activity.”

Neigh­bors are not exempt from these restric­tions. While the town has an emer­gency fire road to Mt. Dal­las, this road is gat­ed and res­i­dents may not hike, hunt or fish with­in this area. All pho­tos will be sub­mit­ted to the sheriff’s office for investigation.

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