Danger lurking near dams
By KRISTEN SCHMIDT
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krschmidt@chroniclenewsgroup.com
DeKALB – In 2007, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed into law new regulations for recreation around dams on public waterways.
It became a crime to fish, boat or otherwise recreate in “exclusion zones,” areas surrounding hazardous low-head dams in public rivers and waterways.
The regulations apply to all publicly owned rivers in Illinois. But non-public, or privately owned, stretches of river throughout the state are not regulated by these rules. In those cases, it’s up to private property owners to assert their rights and keep trespassers away.
Lone Star Industries Inc., doing business as Buzzi Unicem, says it is doing just that by prohibiting rafters, anglers and others from being in or near the Vermilion River in Oglesby near its cement plant.
DeKalb teacher Jennifer M. Wehling died June 25 in a rafting accident at a low-head dam near Lone Star’s cement plant. Two of her companions have been charged with operating watercraft while under the influence of alcohol.
In a memo issued this week, Lone Star says it is now asking Illinois Conservation Police and local law enforcement to cite trespassers. Company spokesman David Rifkind said several people have been cited in the last several days.
The company also has erected additional signs, warning people off the private property. And it has warned local boat rental companies not to send customers down the river onto Lone Star’s property. According to the company’s memo, local boat rental companies have agreed to the company’s requests.
The company does not intend to permanently close this portion of the river, but safety concerns must be addressed first, Rifkind said.
The incident that killed Wehling is similar to one that injured a mother and two children on June 13 in the same spot on the river. In that incident, Mukund Riswadkar, his wife, Manjiri and their 11- and 7-year-old daughters were rafting down the river at the same spot. Mukund Riswadkar told police he was unable to navigate to the right and around the dam, and the family went over the dam. Manjiri Riswadkar and the children were pulled from the water by rescuers. A DNR spokesman said last week they had recovered from their injuries.
Non-Public Waterways
Portions of waterways throughout the state are non-public; many historically were used for commercial navigation, as opposed to recreation, said Bob Mool, legal counsel for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. While the entire Fox River is a public waterway, only portions of the Vermilion River are public.
The cement plant in Oglesby was built in 1906, Rifkind said. The dam was built in 1910.
Though there is a process by which non-public waterways can become public, it’s not common for private property owners to relinquish their rights, Mool said.
Regulation of the state’s dams also is complicated.
The Department of Natural Resources is responsible for construction and maintenance of all dams, whether they are in public or non-public waterways. If a DNR inspection found problems with a non-public dam, the dam’s owner would be responsible for paying for repairs.
Low-head dams are notoriously dangerous. The Glen D. Palmer Dam in Yorkville was the site of multiple drownings; it has since been reconstructed to be less dangerous. There are prominent low-head dams in the Fox River at St. Charles and Geneva.
These dams often become landmarks in their respective towns. Rather than destroy their dam, residents in Yorkville instead decided to modify it to make it less dangerous.
The dam in the Vermilion River at the site of the accident extends only partially across the river, but it has a dangerous hydraulic, or “boil,” just like any other low-head dam.
A low-head dam is built like a wall. Water flows over it and then drops to the lower level along the river. The drop creates a hydraulic, or a circulating flow of water. It is difficult to escape this circulating water.
“They don’t typically build low-head dams anymore,” said Virgil Chambers, executive director of the National Safe Boating Council, who has written several articles about low-head dams.
Destroying the hydraulic at a low-head dam creates its own set of problems, Chambers said. The hydraulic actually supports certain kinds of animal and plant life in the river, and filling the dam in so that water cascades, rather than drops, creates new hazards for people.
“People have a tendency to walk on that,” Chambers said. “My feeling on it is it should be properly educated to the public. They should be marked. People don’t know. It doesn’t look particularly dangerous.”
The National Safe Boating Council cautions any boater or paddler against “running” – navigating for sport – a low-head dam.
Chris McCloud, a DNR spokesman, said the department always looks at removal as an option when it needs to modify a low-head dam.
“People say, ‘Why don’t you just take a stick of dynamite and blow it up?’ You can’t just do that,” McCloud said.
In the case of Yorkville, McCloud said, the community liked the dam. It had become a focal point of the city.
“They wanted to keep it, but eliminate some hazards,” McCloud said. “That takes money. It takes lots of money. And, unfortunately, we don’t have an abundance of money to do everything we would love to do.”
