High waters raise concern for Jobbie Nooner Friday

CLAY TOWNSHIP, Mich. (FOX 2) - Party goers will be headed to Gull Island Friday for the annual Jobbie Nooner, one of the biggest lake parties in the country. 

But this year, that's causing concern for  homeowners along the shoreline.

Rising water levels on Lake Saint Clair and its rivers have led to flooding in Clay Township and other communities. With as many as 8,000 boats descending on Gull Island, homeowners are concerned those boats could cause more damage. 

"People just zipping through there and the problem is it creates a lot of wake and with how high the water is, it's washing up on shore and it washes behind the seawall and you'll see the seawalls start to cave over," Adam Pinkerton tells us. 

Shoreline homeowners like him have spent the past couple months fortifying their property with sandbags, hoping to avoid costly repairs to docks, garages and seawalls.

"If it actually damaged your seawall where they actually have to replace the steel girders going down, it's $250 a linear foot right now," Pinkerton says. 

"So you have the people who own houses on the water, so they're going to be the respectful ones. It's the people who are from out of town that come to Jobbie Nooner and they're just going to be like, 'Wow, I'm on the water. Let's get there; let's go let's party,' and they're going to be flying by," Jayme Moehlman says. She works at Decker's Landing in Clay Township, a restaurant right on the water. 

She and her coworkers see boaters speeding and creating big wakes far too often. So they've taken it upon themselves to do something about it. 

"They have the police boats and coast guard and all of that, but they can't be here every second of every day," she says. 

Clay Township deputized six police officers to help the Saint Clair County Sheriff's marine patrol keep an eye on the township's 140 miles of shoreline. But even the township supervisor says that's not enough. 

"We essentially have three expressways from Lake St. Clair coming through our township with the middle channel, north channel and south channel, and we have people from the other side of the lake just blowing through here," says Artie Bryson. 

There are also concerns about safety. People are known to get drunk during the massive lake party, raising the risk of drowning as this year's Jobbie Nooner will take place in deeper water.

And this high water could be here for the entire summer. If it doesn't drop significantly in the fall, it could mean problems with ice come winter.