The peaceful sound of waves lapping at the shore was more than welcome for Lake Austin homeowners this Memorial Day weekend. The city’s new noise ordinance ramped up for the busiest boating spree of the season so far.
"If you hear them, it's what draws your attention first,” said Austin Police Officer Jeff Joseph.
Steering his patrol boat around to greet a boisterous group of boaters, Joseph carefully gauged their distance from the shore.
“It's probably right at the edge of being too loud,” he said.
Pulling up alongside the two story watercraft, he yelled for the captain’s presence as the hip hop music on board blared almost over his voice.
"Ordinarily, my rule of thumb is, if I can hear you talking louder than your music, and you're not screaming, you're probably okay,” he told the boaters.
He gave out zero tickets over the weekends but issues plenty of warnings.
“Everybody's been fairly good complying with us,” he said.
The rule actually went into effect at the beginning of the year, after shoreline homeowners complained to the city about the sounds floating within earshot.
"I think when you decide to buy real estate on the lake, you're signing up for something,” argued Sarah Barlow, one of the boaters at the lake. “You should know what comes with the territory."
On the water for six years with APD, Joseph said those complaints often took up much of his time and attention.
"It would go so far as to link all their stereos together, so that they would all play the same sound at the same time, so it makes a gigantic stereo," he said.
Boats deemed to loud and within 100 feet from shore are violating the new rule, something so new that many people were unfamiliar with it.
"As it starts getting busier and busier, we start educating more and more,” Joseph said.
"They're the police, and we know not to mess with them,” another boater said.
As people started to understand, Joseph said he has noticed it frees up his efforts to watch the water and focus on safety violations. With the summer just kicking off, he expected the silence to set in fast.
"I like all kinds of music,” he laughed. “I'm still waiting to find the noise complaint of classical music."
