Our paddling members and friends have set us straight on DNR’s proposed Dam Safety Rule, Rule 3703, now pending before the Illinois General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules). We expressed support for the proposed rule in a post last week. The rule would impose a 350-foot exclusion zone around all dangerous dams in order to protect the public safety and prevent the needless drowning deaths that occur in Illinois rivers nearly every year. (Also see our post on the report evaluating costs of improving safety through removal or modification.)

Paddling organizations throughout Illinois, such as the Illinois Paddling Council and Prairie State Canoeists have struggled with the issue of how best to protect river users without making restrictions so tight that they keep people off of and out of the rivers altogether. The paddling community in Illinois is in consensus that the proposed rule, while well-intentioned, will not achieve that balance, at the expense of paddlers in particular.

Exclusion zones that are too large can make paddling long stretches of river nearly impossible. Established landings for canoeists and kayakers to pull their boats out of the river and carry them around dangerous dams are typically within the exclusionary zone the new rule would create. According to the Illinois Paddling Council, the new rule would eliminate existing safe portages on 19 out of 25 dams on the Kankakee, Rock, Fox, Des Plaines, and the Vermillion, essentially closing those rivers to paddlers.

Prairie Rivers Network supports efforts of the paddling community to work with legislators and the Illinois DNR to develop a better plan to prevent deaths and to encourage safe recreation in and along our rivers. To follow the latest on the issue, visit the Illinois Paddling Council’s Web site and consider signing their petition requesting a better rule.

Our stance on dams has always been that run-of-the-river dams are dangerous to people and harmful to river systems as well. These dams can affect downstream water chemistry and starve downstream habitats of vital materials such as silt, sand, gavel, and decaying plant material. Dams also change flow rates, water levels, and impede natural migrations of fish, amphibians, and reptiles that live in streams. Most of these dams in Illinois have outlived their original purpose and now provide recreational and aesthetic benefits that could be provided as well or better by rivers restored to their natural state. We will continue to support efforts to remove these dams by helping local communities find funding sources for planning and removal, and by pressing DNR to consider dam removal when they are undertaking dam maintenance and repair projects.

Thanks to all of you (really!) who called to our attention to the fact that there are better ways to protect river users than the approach called for in Rule 3703.