Our sheriff was afraid someone might hit one of the buoys with a canoe after dark and get tipped over:) He didn't realize that the buoys are soft rubber tethered by a rope with zip ties. So the canoe would never even notice it. I finally convinced him that was not an issue, however, to get potential state approval for our "Navigation Hazard", we had to put tall cylindrical markers on each end of the course, with a solar powered flashing light on top, and a radar reflective strip. Cost about $600 to install those marker buoys that would actually damage a boat or tip a canoe over to warn about something that would not. Typical government logic.
But that got us through one season while the approval process was in place. Next season they still denied it, and they eventually pulled the course (after giving us lots of warnings). We still got the course back in good shape, so they were decent about it. The course was denied because the fishermen were complaining that it increased the boat traffic to that lake. Funny how we never complain to fish and game that the fishermen will intentionally drive their boats into our boat path, or that their discarded fishing lines are getting caught up in our props, etc. But they sure complain about us taking turns in one small section of the lake, because that's where they think the fish must be:)
The good new is that while this was happening, a private man-made ski lake was being created, so we only lost about a month of course skiing.