With dangerous dams continuing to claim lives in Pennsylvania, state lawmakers are looking at updating the 1998 law requiring warning signs and buoys around these structures.
The state House Game & Fisheries Committee this week advanced the bipartisan proposal for consideration by the full House of Representatives.
House Bill 961 sponsor Rep. Natalie Mihalek, R-Allegheny/Washington, shared the story during Tuesday’s committee meeting of the death of her constituent Jon Gentile. A history teacher at Bethel Park High School in a Pittsburgh suburb, Gentile was kayaking with his father in May 2022 on the Delaware River in New Hope, Bucks County, when he became trapped in the churning water flowing over a 4-foot-deep dam, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
“We’ve got 80,000 miles of waterway in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a significant amount of recreational activity, and we need to ensure that people are safe out there,” Mihalek testified. “And sometimes the simple act of warning that there is a danger ahead is all it takes. And in Jon’s case, there was no warning. There were no signs. There was no indication that he was going to be passing over a very dangerous dam.”
Gentile, 38, was wearing a life preserver. He left behind family that included his wife, Kathy, and their young son, Giancarlo. His niece, Claudia Huber, works in Mihalek’s office and joined the lawmaker at Tuesday’s meeting, sharing a hug after the committee voted unanimously to report for the House vote.
The meeting took place in Harrisburg, where the Dock Street Dam on the Susquehanna River has claimed at least 31 lives since its construction in 1913.
Act 91 of 1998 assigned responsibility to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission to enforce proper warning around run-of-the-river dams identified by the state Department of Environmental Protection. It took effect Jan. 1, 1999, requiring owners of these dams to mark them with signs and buoys.
Mihalek’s legislation is supported by co-sponsors that include state Rep. Robert Freeman, D-Northampton, and other lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties.
It would clarify timelines for the DEP to notify owners of dams not already inventoried of their duties to post the warnings upstream and downstream, as well as timelines for compliance.
The proposal also would require the DEP and Fish and Boat Commission to publish on their publicly accessible websites a list of the dams where warnings are required, as well as a map showing their location. It also would halve the time permitted to replace or repair signs or buoys from 30 days to 15 days, as well as specify that dams must be marked even if they cover only part of a waterway’s width.
Penalties for failing to properly post a dam range from a summary offense to a misdemeanor.
The Fish and Boat Commission supports the proposal, spokesman Michael Parker told lehighvalleylive.com. The DEP declined to comment on the pending legislation.
“I think I was a bit taken aback to even think that we weren’t marking these dams or putting signs up,” House Game & Fisheries Committee Chairwoman Anita Astorino Kulik, D-Allegheny, told Mihalek on Tuesday. “So this is extremely important. We’re going to get this across the line for you. We’ll get it to the House floor and then we will go work on the Senate.”
The effort comes as agencies across Pennsylvania and the United States target obsolete dams for removal. Pennsylvania in 2024 led all states with 27 dams removed, and nearly one-third of those were in the Lehigh Valley and Pocono Mountains, according to a report from the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit American Rivers.
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