JEFFERSON COUNTY — Passage of a ban closing access to a dangerous Big River swimming spot in Rockford Park has been delayed until Oct. 14 by the County Council’s decision to amend the legislation Monday night.
County Executive Dennis Gannon said the amendment was requested by the county parks director to clarify that first responders participating in water rescue training would be exempt from the ban.
Had the bill been passed Monday night, Gannon said, he would have signed it within a few days and it would have likely gone into effect at the end of this week.
Because bills can’t be amended and given final approval at the same session, that now won’t occur until the council’s next meeting Oct. 14. If the bill is passed then, Gannon said, it likely would go into effect a few days later.
The council had voted, 6-1, on Sept. 8 to endorse the bill but had yet to give it final approval.
The bill would prohibit entry into the river from the park, where a swift current squeezes between rocky bluffs and the remnants of an old dam. The ban would remain in effect until April, when the council could revisit the issue.
In 2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers piled tons of rocks at the site. That stabilized a crumbling dam as a temporary fix but also helped form a bottleneck in the river with strong eddies that can, and have, pulled swimmers under.
The council also has voted to seek funding for new federal projects focused on the Big River.
The actions followed a Post-Dispatch investigation that showed how the Corps’ work has helped transform the waterway into one of the state’s deadliest, and detailed the toll the river has taken at the park. There have been six drownings in the nine years since the work was done.
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Mark Schlinkmann | Post-Dispatch
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