LAKE MINNETONKA, Minn. _ Gabriel Jabbour couldn't help but shake his head as he eased his boat past sunburned throngs guzzling cans of spiked seltzer in the packed waters of Cruiser's Cove last weekend.
The cove next to Big Island has long been summer party central for Lake Minnetonka boaters. But some longtimers like Jabbour say that nowadays, booze and loud music are the least of their worries.
Last month, a mysterious outbreak sickened 116 people who had been in the water during the July 4 weekend _ the Super Bowl of lakeside debauchery. The news alarmed surrounding residents and many who come to the lake to party or for a refreshing swim.
"If anybody tells you the geese did it, I have never in my life seen geese out here," said Jabbour, owner of three area marinas and the self-styled "Mayor of Big Island." More likely, he says, is that one of the boats dumped its sewage while anchored, rather than heading back to a marina and taking the risk of losing its spot in the mob of vessels.
His solution is a simple one: Team up with the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Water Patrol to search for boats with built-in toilet pumps, which he argued have no place on a lake with so many pumping stations. So far, he says, local conservation officials aren't listening.
Making another pass around the cove, Jabbour pointed to the "family" area, where a half-dozen boats bobbed lazily in the waist-deep water. "And this," he said, jabbing a finger farther west, "is where the party animals are."
And any potential risk of getting sick was not keeping them out of the water last weekend.
Standing on a boat drifting through the "party" zone, Makayla Dreier watched as other members of a bachelorette party she was with, including the bride-to-be, splashed around nearby. She had seen the headlines about elevated E. coli levels, but said that that wasn't going to stop her from joining the fun.
"I was obviously concerned, but one of the girls brought hand sanitizer," said Dreier, 22, who drove up for the day from Norwood Young America.
A few yards away, a man who had been coming to Big Island for 22 years said that he didn't think twice about getting in the water.
"Obviously, if you drink the water, you don't know" what's going to happen, he said. "Long story short, you've gotta use common sense."
Some lake users fret about what they see as a lack of responsiveness by the Lake Minnetonka Conservation District, which regulates use of the waterway.
Jake Walesch, a Deephaven resident who is on the board of the LMCD, said he would push for a public education campaign because people "don't understand the mechanics of the pumps or they aren't aware of what's happening."
"There's no reason to have the pump on there if you're not planning on pumping it in the lake," he said. "It's dangerous and disgusting and should be common sense, but apparently it's not."
Hennepin County Sheriff's Office spokesman Edgar Linares said the department would gladly help health officials if they asked to use their boats, "But the thing is we can't stop people from going in the water."
"It's not really our thing; we're not taking a lead on this," he said.
