# City and state spanked in boating death



## restrac2000 (Mar 6, 2008)

Canada said:


> Family wins lawsuit over kayakers&apos; deaths in Jordan River | The Salt Lake Tribune
> 
> Look for boating restrictions to follow. Municipalities can't afford not to ban boating if they can be hit with 7 figure awards for parties going over low head dams.


Bad trends in Utah between this and the ruling against the USFS & State a few years back from the bear attack. 

Low head dams are scary and dangerous for boating. That said, a quick google search and use of the _Wayback Machine_ does show a lack of information about the feature before the 2010 incident. There is no mention of the low head dam on the American Whitewater description until someone updated with a warning after the death and even then its a secondary component of the page. I am all for boater accountability but there does seem to be some fault on the municipalities with this one. They had a plan in place since 2008 to work out river trails and signing but failed to fund it properly enough to make safety changes.

Hope they find the $$ to prevent future deaths and make the run safer. Low head dams and diversions ultimately need to have boater channels and not just signs, overgrown ones at that.

Phillip


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## DanCan (Jul 22, 2011)

Have you read about the Jordan River thing? There has been multiple accidents there over the years, and the river community has tried to get the State, County or City to put up signs warning of the damn ahead. But all they have is a little sign that is over grown with trees.

Look for the city to finally spend $300 on some real signage.

DanCan


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## gunnerman (Jun 6, 2013)

It was just a matter of time. I just hope that we don,t get a bunch of foolish legislation from this. This is where we can hopefully come together as a community and get AW on board to finally insist that all low-head dams be properly marked, and have boat shoots. But the best remedy is to have most of these foolish things removed. There has to be a better way for water diversion, period. Salida better take note of this verdict.


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## craven_morhead (Feb 20, 2007)

Before we get all the-sky-is-falling, note that the plaintiffs were fighting mostly empty chairs -- the only party who was actually defending the suit was found to be 5% at fault.


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## restrac2000 (Mar 6, 2008)

craven_morhead said:


> Before we get all the-sky-is-falling, note that the plaintiffs were fighting mostly empty chairs -- the only party who was actually defending the suit was found to be 5% at fault.


Kinda...the others settled out of court for more than a million combined...still has an effect on how municipalities may approach boating. This is especially true in Utah that has increasingly been inhospitable to the community.

Phillip


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