Hennepin County Water Patrol: Volunteers of the waters

In 1955, Lake Minnetonka was a watery Wild West.

Boats didn't have to be registered or have running lights, and faster boats and growing traffic led to accidents that resulted in 18 drowning deaths. Press accounts said dangerously fast boats -- the best-selling outboard motors of the time were 25 horsepower -- were creating a "crisis" on the water.

That's when citizens proposed an all-volunteer water patrol to work with the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. The next year, volunteers who supplied their own uniforms and boats headed out on the lake to promote safe boating.

And in 1956, there were only three drownings in the lake.

The Hennepin County Sheriff's Water Patrol is celebrating a milestone anniversary this year, marking 50 years since patrol volunteers officially became special deputies. Today, 10 regular sheriff's deputies staff the Water Patrol, but the bulk of the men and women who staff the patrol on busy days remain volunteers, with 28 special deputies and seven more volunteers in training.

The July 4th weekend is one of their busiest every year, and patrol members planned to be out on Lake Minnetonka and other lakes, as well as the Mississippi River, to respond to emergencies. Last year, patrol volunteers worked more than 10,000 hours to help keep the 104 lakes and three rivers in the county safe.

So far this year, the patrol has made 28 boating-while-intoxicated arrests. Six snowmobilers were arrested for drunken driving. And the patrol has assisted with the water recovery of five bodies, though there have been no drowning deaths on Lake Minnetonka.

Rich Siakel, a Northwest Airlines pilot who flies international routes, called his six years of volunteering "rewarding and fascinating." A Lake Minnetonka resident for 25 years, he was invited to join the patrol partly because he is a scuba diver. He loves it.

"It's everything from reminding a parent to put a life jacket on a child under 10 to checking a record and finding a felon," Siakel said.

Hennepin County's large number of patrol volunteers is somewhat unusual in the state, said Jayson Johnson, a volunteer for a decade and now a crew chief. Though the county now supplies boats, equipment, uniforms and training, officials estimate that patrol volunteers and their counterparts on a roadway emergency response squad save the county more than $250,000 a year. The Water Patrol has a budget this year of $1.2 million.

Patrol volunteers get a year's training in everything from emergency medical skills and use of force to the laws that govern state waters. They have to pass strenuous physical tests that include swimming a distance while fully clothed, diving to retrieve weights and treading water. Though they get their badges after training, they're on probation for a year before becoming permanent members of the patrol.

While patrol members split their time between lakes and rivers in the county, Lake Minnetonka remains their focus. The tangle of bays and channels on the big lake -- thought to be the most densely populated lakeshore in the state -- look different at night and in winter, Johnson said. There are go-slow areas and no-anchor lanes marked by buoys so the patrol can get in and out of areas such as Cruiser's Cove, where in 2003 a man died in a July 4th accident when he fell overboard and was hit by his own boat. Hundreds of boats were tied together in the cove to watch fireworks, and when patrol members arrived, many boaters refused to move to let them get to the victim.

The patrol's boats are equipped with big engines, lights and sirens, computers, oxygen and fire pumps. Sophisticated sonar is available to help with "recoveries," the grim job of retrieving bodies from the water. The patrol also traveled to New Orleans to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

And Siakel said he will never forget rounding a bend in the Mississippi River less than an hour after the collapse of the 35W bridge and witnessing the surreal sight of "a burning truck, mangled steel in the water, and all those people on shore."

But much of the job consists of quieter duties. Johnson said the best part is working with kids on water safety. Even cruising slowly around Lake Minnetonka and waving at boaters reminds people to slow down, put on a life jacket and skip the beer.

"Just by motoring around the lake we are a deterrent to bad behavior," Siakel said.

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380