GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – As boating season nears, those hitting one local waterway are urged to take caution.
Work continues to cleanup the Fox River.
Through an effort that started in April 2009, Fox River Cleanup Project crews are working to reduce risks to human health and the environment caused by the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the river sediment.
That’s being done through dredging, capping, and sand covering operations that span a 13 mile stretch of the lower Fox River.
Work for the 2017 season began on March 20.
Green Bay Police Captain Kevin Warych, whose department’s marine unit patrols the Fox River along with the Brown County Sheriff’s Office, notes there’s a new element being introduced this year.
“The dredging equipment has been here for nine years so we hope people have a good understanding of the rules pertaining to the equipment, the buoys. But this year, there is heightened awareness per se, because there (are) divers in the water.”
Those divers are working to mark and dredge near utility lines that run under the Fox River.
They are currently focusing on an area near the Mason Street Bridge.
J.F. Brennan Company Senior Project Manager Dustin Bauman notes “the law protects our divers that you have to stay 100 feet away from a diver in the water at all times.”
Bauman says flags will be used to mark the areas where diving is taking place
Also, there are additional safety markers that boaters are encouraged to memorize.
Cleanup Group officials say areas where dredges, pump stations, spreaders, and project pipelines are located are essentially ‘construction zones.’
In most places, Bauman says boaters shouldn’t have any problems getting around.
“The majority of the time that’s staged along the outer sides of it, and we have a clear, safe passage of travel.”
While the project had carried on, as of mid-May, for more than 2,200,000 hours without a lost-time incident, Captain Warych says he has seen some infractions in past years.
“Boaters not following the laws pertaining to speed and wake violations on the river.”
Warych urges boaters to slow down, especially in work zones.
