{"id":235324,"date":"2026-07-04T09:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T09:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235324\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T09:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T09:02:18","slug":"operation-dry-water-underway-for-boaters-on-pennsylvania-lakes-waterways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235324\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Operation Dry Water&#8217; underway for boaters on Pennsylvania lakes, waterways"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BALD EAGLE STATE PARK, Pa. (WTAJ) \u2014 Conservation officers at Bald Eagle State Park are gearing up for a busy holiday weekend, which means looking out for safety violations.<\/p>\n<p>Centre County Waterways Conservation Officer Dalton Hopper says he and others are going to have to spend extra time on patrol during the July 4 weekend. The patrols are out looking to keep boaters safe by finding violations like boating under the influence (BUI).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce we see that violation, we\u2019ll hone in on it, make a vessel stop. Through that personal contact phase, we see those other indicators such as bloodshot, glassy eyes, or smell of alcoholic beverage,\u201d Hopper said.<\/p>\n<p>Routine safety stops to check for items like a valid boat registration or life jackets can also happen.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtaj.com\/news\/pa-outdoors\/operation-dry-water-returns-to-keep-pennsylvania-waters-safe-during-holiday-weekend\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.wtaj.com\/news\/pa-outdoors\/operation-dry-water-returns-to-keep-pennsylvania-waters-safe-during-holiday-weekend\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">enhanced patrolling will be happening statewide<\/a> between July 3 and 5, with the Pa. Fish and Boat Commission dubbing it \u201cOperation Dry Water.\u201d Sayers Lake at Bald Eagle State Park already prohibits alcohol, but it requires officers to be alert.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSayers Lake being a dry lake, we don\u2019t run into it all the time, but it\u2019s something that we do keep an eye on; we do run into it. Compared to other lakes where you might have it all the time,\u201d Hopper said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Pa. Fish and Boat Commission, roughly a third of its BUI arrests in 2025 happened the weekend of July 4. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis weekend brings a lot of recreational boaters and people fishing. So we step up our time out here on the water as well,\u201d Hopper said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tSuggest a Correction<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tClose Modal<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tSuggest a Correction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BALD EAGLE STATE PARK, Pa. (WTAJ) \u2014 Conservation officers at Bald Eagle State Park are gearing up for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-235324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}