OGALLALA, Neb. (AP) - Hundreds of people showed up for a meeting at the Lake McConaughy Visitor Center in Ogallala to protest proposed changes that would drastically limit overnight campers and beachgoers at the lake.
The proposal discussed at Thursday's meeting came from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission following complaints about overcrowding and rowdy behavior last Fourth of July.
The proposed changes, which would take effect later this year, are meant to lower attendance to address the overcrowding on the lake's beaches.
Under the plan, public access to boat ramps at McConaughy and neighboring Lake Ogallala would remain unchanged. But some stretches of the lake's 22 miles of beaches would be limited to day use, and all camping spaces would be reservation-only and be limited to 600, said Jim Swenson, Game and Parks' parks division administrator.
The proposal goes far beyond what locals and lake visitors had in mind when they called for change. Most people at Thursday's meeting said they wanted more law enforcement and greater attention to checkpoints, not a crackdown to limit access to the lake. Critics say the commission's plan would deliver an economic blow to local businesses.
But Swenson said explosive growth in the number of annual visitors to Lake McConaughy in recent years - from 500,000 in the 1990s to more than 1 million in 2012 to nearly 2 million last year - has forced officials to accelerate greater restrictions on beachfront and camping access.
"It's not just an issue of more law enforcement," Swenson said. "It's an issue that our infrastructure as it exists today isn't enough to handle the visitation that's occurring."
The changes proposed by Game and Parks are projected to lower estimated annual visits to between 400,000 and 700,000.