Corps' new rule upsets long-term campers

PITTSBURG, Mo. -- It's fine to camp for months at Pomme de Terre Lake.

The Army Corps of Engineers just doesn't want it to look like anyone lives there year-round.

That new regulation isn't sitting well with people who have spent years -- and hundreds of dollars, in some cases -- sprucing up their campsites.

Jack Schouten is one of them.

A brown wooden fence, silver light post, lime-green outdoor carpet and a horseshoe pit are just a few of the amenities Schouten installed during his five-year tenure at the Harbor, a campground and marina just south of the dam.

"It's all got to come up," Schouten said. "They don't want anything left. They want it to look like a three-day-a-week campground instead of what it is: a long-term camping area."

He and his wife, Loraine, sold their camper and the remaining time on their site, which Schouten said costs more than $1,300 a year. The couple won't be back.

"If it made rhyme or reason, I could go along with it," Schouten said. "You can't talk to stupidity and ignorance."

'It's not their home'

As part of a new program, the corps is mandating that mobile camping units can no longer sit in one spot for more than nine months on the lake's campgrounds. From Dec. 1 to March 1, the trailers -- and "all items creating the appearance of permanent residence" -- have to be moved from the site, according to corps guidelines.

"People have to keep in mind that this is federal land. It's not their private home," said Jim Davis, the corps' project manager at the 7,820-acre lake. "If the trailers stay there all the time, it gives the appearance of private use. We don't want our campgrounds to look like trailer courts."

Davis, who has worked at the lake for nearly two decades, said he knows of no other corps lake that offers long-term camping.

Of the Harbor's 124 campsites, 116 are rented on a year-round basis to seasonal or long-term campers. Many of the rigs sit in the same spot for 12 months. Some have remained for as long as three or four years.

"That's 98 percent of our business," said the Harbor's co-owner, Morris Lawson. "We have eight sites we have for overnight campers and they're never rented."

Davis said the corps has thus far been lenient with long-term camping due to a "gentleman's agreement" in the mid-1980s.

But it's gotten out of hand, he said.

Satellite dishes are screwed to tree stumps. Intricate lattice work surrounds the patios. Flower boxes overflowing with pink and purple blossoms sit poised on makeshift decks.