New law meant to improve safety around dams

Getting too close to your favorite suburban river dam now could cost you $2,500 and up to a year behind bars.

New legislation signed Thursday by Gov. Rod Blagojevich creates "exclusion zones" around low-head dams, which are considered especially dangerous for rushing waters that can trap river goers.

Anyone who enters the zones can face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine -- consequences lawmakers say will improve public safety.

"The end game is to eliminate the dams, but this is a very important first step, to give people the first warning they need," said state Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi, a Joliet Democrat, who co-sponsored the bill with House Minority Leader Tom Cross, an Oswego Republican.

Across the state, 32 dams were identified as low-head. Twelve are along the Des Plaines and Fox rivers including the Hoffman Dam on the Des Plaines River and Fox River dams in Algonquin, Batavia, Carpentersville, Elgin, Geneva, North Aurora, South Elgin and St. Charles.

The list also includes the William G. Stratton Lock and Dam in McHenry.

The law also requires signs and floating buoys at low-head dams on publicly owned rivers to warn people about their danger.

Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Marcelyn Love said the agency already installed more than 100 signs and buoys during the past year, including four signs at the St. Charles dam and buoys at 12 dams on the Fox River. Love said there also is at least one buoy with a flashing light at each of the 12 Fox River dams.

The legislation was developed after six people died last year in two separate incidents on the Fox River in Yorkville and the Kankakee River in Wilmington.

The Yorkville incident claimed brothers Mark and Bruce R. Sperling of Yorkville and Lombard, respectfully, who drowned May 27 while trying to rescue kayaker Craig Fliege of Oakbrook Terrace.

Fliege also drowned after his kayak went over the Glen D. Palmer Dam in Yorkville.

̢ۢDaily Herald news services contributed to this report.