KAUKAUNA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Area public safety units are learning how to operate the Fox Locks for the first time in generations.
On Wednesday, deputies with the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office opened and closed the Fox River Locks.
Staffing Sergeant Dave Steffens tells FOX 11 the 11 deputies getting training on his team have never touched a lock before.
“They come out here and see a 35 foot wide and 140 ft. long, I guess for lack of better words, bath, that fills up with a quarter million gallons of water and all of a sudden they need to go from point A to point B.”
Steffens says as more people use the Fox Locks, there’s a need for area safety officials to be along the river too.
The locks are on the national register of historic places and are the only hand-operated, fully restored lock system in the United States.
So learning how to use them is a unique task.
Deputies released the the valves, filled the lock chamber, and opened the doors.
CEO for the Fox River Navigational Authority, Jeremy Cords, tells FOX 11 the training is for municipalities that have jurisdiction along the Fox River.
“That’s sheriffs departments, police departments, fire departments access to the locks and we want to train them.”
Cords says on average between two to three thousand boats carrying five to six thousand passengers travel through the locks every year.
He expects to see that number get higher.
Steffens wants to make sure local teams are ready on land and water.
“Say a boat all of a sudden capsized in the middle of the Appleton area and the county line and its between the locks, we can essential work in conjunction with Kaukauna Fire, or with DPW or even De Pere to request mutual aide from Brown County and get to the emergency situation much faster.”
Steffens and Cords say the main goal is to develop interdepartmental cooperation so that all locks that spread across the 39 miles of the lower Fox River are safe.
Cords says departments will continue to train in the future.
The next session is scheduled for the spring.
The locks were built in the mid-1800s when Wisconsin was becoming a state and they are necessary because the river drops 168 feet in elevation from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay.
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