A community-based team developing a boat management plan for Lake Tapps will hold a public workshop Dec. 1 aimed at receiving input from area residents and others who use the lake for recreational activities. The workshop will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Sumner High School Performance Center, 1707 Main St., Sumner.

The planning effort was directed by a County Council resolution sponsored by Councilmember Shawn Bunney, a Lake Tapps resident. He co-chairs the Lake Tapps Task Force with County Executive John Ladenburg.

The Task Force has been working to save the man-made 2,700-acre lake from being drained following Puget Sound Energy’s announcement in the late 1990s that it no longer could operate the White River Hydroelectric Project profitably. The company stopped electricity generation operations at the lake earlier this year.

The boat management planning effort is part of an agreement between PSE and the Lake Tapps community aimed at maintaining water levels to insure the lake’s long term recreational viability. “Executive Ladenburg and Councilmember Bunney have been working with PSE and the community to keep water levels up during the boating season,” said Pierce County Parks and Recreation Director Jan Wolcott.

The Parks and Recreation Department operates North Lake Tapps County Park, which is visited by more than 250,000 visitors a year. The park is water-oriented and includes boat launching and swimming areas. On the south side of the lake, the City of Bonney Lake operates Allen Yorke Park, which includes boat-launching and swimming facilities. Some 2,600 water craft – most of them power boats –are owned by lake residents, and additional hundreds of people bring boats by trailer to the lake.