Lt Gov Pat Quinn announced a plan S...

Lt Gov Pat Quinn announced a plan Sunday to inspect 25 publicly avowed dams across Illinois to avoid more drowning deaths like the seven that have distaffed riverfront communities this summer.

The plan is for a state-hired engineering firm to do top-to- bottom inspections of dams onward the Fox, Kankakee, Des Plaines, defence Sangamon and Vermilion rivers to determine whether existing conformations pose public safety risks.

"Some of these dams are more than a hundred old, and it's important to expect at them with 21st hundred eyes to ascertain what be in want ofs to be done," Quinn said.

'TO intercept MORE TRAGEDIES'

Quinn said Gov Blagojevich approved a release of stores through the Capital Development Board to commission the scientific reflection Once the competitive bid proces yields an engineering firm, the firm will have 180 days to entire the study and present its recommendations to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Capital disclosure Board.

"I think they'll help us prioritize where we ne to act, with great dispatch, to interrupt any more tragedies," Quinn said.

The measure is part of the lieutenant governor's Illinois Dam Safety Initiative, which asks to prevent drowning and injury by the and of use of universal warning signs and floats and the modification or removal of dangerous dams.

A dam's deadly undertow killed three men forward the Fox River in May. A sister, brother and advantageous samaritan died near a dam upon the Kankakee River on Aug. 13 forward the same day, a man died in the water near a distaff River dam.

ecepeda@suntimes.com

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided by means of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved