The families of a couple who drowned while kayaking over a small, underwater dam filed a pair of $50 million lawsuits against the state of Oregon, Lane County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week for failing to post signs upriver warning of the mortal danger.
Mariana Dukes II and Joseph Bendix, ages 23 and 26, died in April 2022 after they paddled down a calm stretch of the Long Tom River in Lane County and then suddenly found themselves tumbling over the submerged government-built dam called a “low head dam,” according to lawsuits filed in state and federal courts Tuesday and Wednesday. The dams are colloquially known as “killer dams” or “drowning machines” and are responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people in the U.S. from 2018 to 2020, according to the National Weather Service.
“It’s innocuous looking,” said Travis Eiva, the families’ Eugene attorney, of the low head dam that killed Dukes and Bendix. “People go down little rapids all of the time in their tubes, in rafts and in kayaks. But it is profoundly inappropriate to do it on this kind of rapid, over this low head dam. It is just recirculating current that just pulls you down and an Olympic swimmer can’t get out of it.”
Eiva said because the dams are submerged and often don’t have a big drop-off, they are difficult for people to see upriver or to realize the imminent danger. The National Weather Service has posted photos of how hidden the dams can be to users floating down the river.
Eiva said Dukes and Bendix, who lived in Eugene and were planning to get married, had expected to enjoy a “nice, meandering day on the river.”
“They weren’t going down a river with rapids,” Eiva said. “They weren’t going down the McKenzie. They weren’t going down portions of the Willamette. They were going down a sleepy river called the Long Tom. And it’s just tragic. Absolutely tragic. This shouldn’t have happened.”
Eiva said that since Dukes’ and Bendix’s deaths, signs have appeared above the dam warning river users of the danger and to exit the river.
Local media reported that police don’t believe the couple were wearing life jackets because they didn’t find any on their bodies when they were recovered or downriver. Experts stress the importance of always wearing life jackets, but note that many people wearing life jackets have died in low head dams because of their tremendous power to trap people underwater. The force of the water also has torn life jackets off.
Officials from the state’s Department of Justice, Lane County and the Army Corps of Engineers declined to comment on the pending litigation. A spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers said the agency built the dam in 1941 for reasons that include flood control, and the agency has maintained it ever since.
There have been about 200 such dams identified in Oregon and more than 13,000 across the U.S., according to an interactive 2023 map created by Brigham Young University. Not all low head dams create the cyclical underwater churn that kills dozens of people nationwide each year, say experts who promote dam safety.
The Portland area is home to a few low head dams, including on Johnson Creek in Southeast Portland, on the Tualatin River west of West Linn and on the Tualatin River just upstream from the canoe and kayak launch at Rood Bridge Park in Hillsboro, according to Brigham Young University’s mapping project. Of note, the dam where Dukes and Bendix died is not included in that database.
Organizations ranging from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Boy Scouts of America recognize April as “Low Head Dam Public Safety Awareness Month.”
Eiva said although the lawsuits seeks $50 million, any damages awarded could be limited by state and federal caps. For example, he noted that state law limits Oregon’s liability to about $2.3 million per person and the county’s liability to about $800,000.
He said one major driver of the lawsuits is to educate the public about low head dams and sway governments to do something to prevent deaths.
“People just need to know about them,” Eiva said. “They need to know if they’re on the river that they’re going down. And they need to be warned of that.”
He continued: “If governments want to put these in our waterways, they have a duty to make sure that people are made aware of them and know to avoid them.”
Eiva and Bend attorney Tim Williams filed the suits in Lane County Circuit Court and U.S. District Court for Oregon in Eugene.
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