Yorkville Dam Action Letter
Sample letter to:

Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich
Ill. Lt. Governor Pat Quinn
IDNR Acting Director Sam Flood
Your State Senator
Your State Representative

Dear _______________,

On Saturday, May 27, 2006, three men tragically lost their lives at the Glen Palmer Dam on the Fox River in Yorkville, Illinois. This tragedy brings to 17 the number of lives lost at the Glen Palmer Dam since its construction in 1960.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources – Office of Water Resources (OWR) is about to begin construction of a four-step dam to replace the current Glen Palmer Dam. According to OWR officials, the four-step dam is safer than the current straight drop structure. While this may be true, citizens of Illinois have died at other “stepped” dams on the Fox River. A 1993 incident at the North Aurora Dam (a stepped dam) took the life of one young man and seriously injured another.

As an IDNR Conservation Police Officer put it at a news conference conducted by IDNR Acting Director Sam Flood and OWR Director Gary Clark on Thursday, June 1, “All dams are dangerous.”

At that same news conference, OWR Director Clark said that the rebuilding project’s priorities were: “Number one, public safety; number two, environmental impacts; and number three, recreational opportunities.” Acting Director Flood admitted that the stepped dam proposal would not be safe, only safer than the current structure. An IDNR commissioned study (Santucci and Gephard, 2003) clearly stated that, if the biological health of the river was a prime concern, dams should be removed. It appears that in light of these facts, OWR is violating its own priorities in rebuilding a dangerous structure.

The rebuilding of the Glen Palmer Dam will cost the taxpayers of the State of Illinois approximately $7 million when all work is completed. Particularly when the State is short of funds, rebuilding a dam that will be dangerous to people using the river for recreational purposes and bad for the ecological health of the Fox River is unconscionable. Removal of the dam would cost only a fraction of the rebuilding costs and would entirely eliminate the hazard to people using the river for recreational purposes. It would also enhance the biological integrity of the river.

The State of Illinois should not be in the business of funding projects that are harmful to the State’s natural resources and dangerous to its citizens. Please do what you can to see that the Glen Palmer Dam is removed, not replaced.

Thank you.

Sincerely,