BIG LAKE -- Standing in the sunshine on a graying, angled deck on Big Lake Wednesday, Houston Hannafious' summer job looks easy: amble down driveways and onto the lake, sketch a dock with its approximate dimensions and snap a few photos.

Don't let the sunshine fool you. In reality, Hannafious' task of surveying all the docks on Big Lake this summer is a little like Sisyphus' relentless uphill boulder-shoving duties.

"There's hundreds of these things out here," Hannafious said, a sweeping arm including the dock he was examining and dozens of others just across a cove that leads to Fish Creek.

Hundreds of docks, many of which belong to weekenders who on Wednesday were likely at work in Anchorage or elsewhere and not able to give Hannafious permission to look at their dock.

Hannafious is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers retiree working for the Corps this summer. He hopes to catalog all of them before the summer is through, but said someone else will likely have to wrap up the project.

Not everyone who owns a piece of the 26 miles of Big Lake shoreline has a dock, but most do. Hannafious said there are more than 950 lakeside landowners on his list, including many on the west side of the lake who access their land solely by boat or, in the winter, via snowmachine or on the ice road.

Big Lake, with a surface size of nearly 2,500 square acres, is one of two lakes in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough that the Army Corps of Engineers regulates under an 1899 federal law as a navigable water body, meaning the water is used or could be used to transport foreign or interstate commerce. The other one is Lake Louise, northeast of Palmer. The Corps and the Coast Guard took jurisdiction over Big lake decades ago, Hannafious said.

"There were so many boat operators and boat owners on the lake at the time, it was becoming dangerous," he said.

The lake has had a checkered history of boat collisions and fatalities, many of which involved boating after drinking. The government oversight aimed to curb that, he said.

Mostly, Corps oversight means anyone seeking to build something in or on the water, or who wants to dump dirt in the lake needs to get a Corps permit first. Hannafious aims to catalog who has permits and who doesn't, and help the landowners who need permits get them. Problems could arise if the dock juts out into the lake, causing a traffic hazard, or if it encroaches on a neighbor's property. But so far, Hannafious said he hasn't seen many problems.

"We're not out here actually looking for problems. Mainly, we're just trying to get people a permit if they don't have one," he said.

For the private landowner, new dock permits cost $10 and require a public notice period. New commercial permits cost $100, Hannafious said. Work on existing, permitted docks is generally free, as long as it stays within a certain size.

Hannafious said fees won't be required for most Big Lake landowners participating in the survey. An important note: the Corps is not handing out fees for unpermitted docks.

"We're not looking at penalizing anybody for not having a permit. We're looking at bringing people into compliance," said Pat Richardson, Corps spokeswoman.

Hannafious said he's also reminding people of good building practices, like keeping pencil-width gaps between decking to allow sun to filter through to shoreline plants. On Big Lake, where the shoreline is frequently buffeted by waves, losing shoreline vegetation could lead to erosion problems.

Hannafious said he sent out surveys to 350 lakeside landowners recently. The one-sheet piece of paperwork asks people questions about whether they have a dock, when it was built and if it was permitted. It's also aimed at giving Hannafious permission to walk on the property to look at the dock, but it lets the homeowner say whether he or she wants to be present at the time. It also asks whether Hannafious should watch for pets, like dogs.

On Wednesday, Hannafious said he's getting a good return from the surveys, even though he was striking out on trying to reach property owners by knocking on doors or on the phone. Several surveys arrived in that morning's mail, but he was 0 for 6 on the phone calls.

"We'll probably be sending more surveys out," he said.

Richardson said the Corps has wanted to conduct a Big Lake survey for several years. This summer worked because they have funding and an employee to do it.

"There's a lot of new building up there. It's an area we haven't had an inventory on before," she said.