Homer’s Small Boat Harbor in Kachemak Bay on July 5, 2024. (Photo by Barbara Norton/Alaska Beacon)
On Wednesday, the five members of Alaska’s highest court heard arguments in a lawsuit that seeks to restore a ban on personal watercraft, commonly known as Jet Skis, in a pair of conservation areas near Homer.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang repealed the 19-year-old ban in 2020 , an act that prompted a lawsuit from the Alaska Quiet Rights Coalition and three other nonprofits.
In 2023, an Alaska Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs , and the state appealed that decision to the high court.
“Jet skis are polarizing. People love them. Or they hate them. Whether to allow their use in Kachemak Bay divided the local community back in the 2000s, and it has continued to divide the local community ever since,” state attorneys wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court.
In the lower court, and in arguments to the Supreme Court, attorney Samuel Gottstein — representing supporters of the ban — said that the state law that created the conservation areas prohibits the commissioner from revoking the watercraft ban once it was installed by regulation by a prior commissioner.