Lake Wazee and dive flags

[jimmyeb]

“Except in case of emergency, anyone engaging in such diving or swimming shall not rise to the surface outside of a radius of fifty (50) feet from such flag.”  That is basically how the law is written in Wisconsin pertaining to the use of a dive flag.  Basically as long as you’re underwater, a flag doesn’t have to follow you.  Local jurisdictions can make laws more restrictive than the state law, but they cannot make them more lax.  Wazee is in the jurisdiction of the state law, therefore a dive flag is required.  Maybe this part of the law may be open to some interesting interpretation: “No person may engage in underwater diving or swimming with the use of swimming fins or skin diving in waters other than marked swimming areas or within one hundred fifty (150) feet of shoreline, and no person may engage in underwater diving or swimming with the use of self-contained underwater breathing apparatus in waters other than marked swimming areas, unless the location of such diving or swimming is distinctly marked by a diver's flag”.  So if Jackson County were to designate some dive sites at Wazee as “swimming areas”, dive flags would not be required in those areas.