LAKE WYLIE Despite public concern before their meeting last week, members of the Lake Wylie Marine Commission offered their seal of approval on a new addition to the lake they say poses no threat to public safety.

Commissioners heard Oct. 26 from Dr. Bill Jarman, who presented information on the Duke Energy-sponsored Habitat Enhancement Program, a partnership where permitted docks, piers and other structures along Catawba River lakes include money set aside for habitat preservation. The program installed almost 700 porcupine fish attractors in Catawba River lakes last year, along with 400 more the previous year in lakes James, Rhodhiss, Hickory and Lookout Shoals. Early next year, between 100 and 300 should arrive in Lake Wylie.

"There's a lot of trepidation about putting them at the end of docks and having kids jump off the docks and impaling themselves," commission executive director Joe Stowe said prior to the Oct. 26 meeting. "There's a lot of public concern."

C.D. Collins, who lives along a Gaston County cove of Lake Wylie, witnessed two incidents within a week of each other more than a year ago. In one, a parent checking the end of his dock just before his daughter jumped into the lake found a steel barb fish attractor.

"That disturbed us, because we didn't have any idea who put them there," Collins said. "My main concern, as always, is safety."

Then Collins and a neighbor saw boaters dropping cinderblocks into the water near another dock, something Collins sees as a danger to homeowners.

"If they put them along the shoreline where there's nobody swimming or jumping in the water, that's one thing," he said. "They don't need to be putting them at the end of people's docks."

Although fishing near docks and structures in shallow water often proves an effective angling technique, experts say, the new attractors should be installed in deeper water. The latest fishing attractor models also are made of PVC pipe vs. metal. Joined together at a central point, the porcupine "ball" attractors reach about five feet in diameter. Bricks sink the structures to 18- to 28- foot depths to form a structure for algae growth, which provides protection for smaller fish and smaller fish food for larger fish.

"When installed as presented, the commission did not note any dangers or adverse effects that the fish attractors presented to the lake or the public," said commission chairman Smitty Hanks.

In some lakes, only GPS coordinates mark the attractors, though Lake Wylie also will use buoys, Hanks said. Advantages of the porcupine model include a longer-lasting structure that will not rot like Christmas trees and one slick enough not to hang up lures.