Upper St. Joseph River boaters have been advised to wait until at least after Memorial Day to put their boats in this year.
The river there is lower than normal, thanks to actions taken in response to a small leak in the Johnson Street Dam in Elkhart.
Normally at this time of year, Indiana and Michigan Power raises the level of the St. Joseph River east of the Johnson Street Hydroelectric Dam in Elkhart for the summer boating season. But the utility discovered a problem in the dam, and repairing it will require the river to be lower until the work is done.
I&M hopes to finish by Memorial Day but isn’t making any promises it will hit that target.
Tom Shoff is president of the St. Joseph River Association. The nonprofit has about 600 members, mostly people who live on the water, who pay dues to control the river’s weed problem.
Shoff says the river was last this low about 20 years ago when the utility slowed the flow down to almost a trickle to add some support cables to the dam, which is more than a century old.
Shoff and his wife Stacy are heeding I&M’s advise to wait until the work is done before putting their pontoon boat in. He says the river is so low that it would be hard to get to your boat at the pier. And boating in such low water can be dangerous.
"There's a lot of underwater debris, stumps and logs and things, that when the river's at its normal height, you just cruise right over those," Shoff said. "Well now you can hit them easier. I know there are some boaters that still put in their boats, and that's fine."
The couple also volunteers to manage the River Queen, the nonprofit 75-year-old cruise boat. They usually launch its first cruise around Memorial Day but that’s been pushed back to the second week in June, assuming I&M finishes by the holiday.
