This is a major bummer. I don’t swim anymore, but in my tri days for a decade or so Walden was my swim training location. Awesome place near Boston for swimming. I saw this in the works for a while as they tried to ban OWS off and on the past 10 years or so. It doesn’t help that and OWSwimmer or 2 died at some point in the recent past at Walden.
Locally, I’ve seen COVID times as a major period of reducing public access to recreation. Beach access and now this Walden thing. For Walden, the swim buoy requirement makes perfect sense, but I bet the state doesn’t want liability for any more deaths on their land. There have been an incredible amount of drownings lately, many on state owned land.