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Crews saved the two women who became stuck in turbulent currents at a low-head dam on the Willamette River, one of five such incidents at the dam this summer. But no agency is taking responsibility for posting warning signs.
Julia Nemeth and her sister, Jeane Carvalho, struggled in the churning, washing machine-like currents as an underwater dam sucked their floating tubes into a concrete wall.
For nearly 15 minutes, Nemeth and Carvalho feared toppling over and drowning in the force that held them. Then a rescue boat approached.
“They threw the ropes and then pulled us out of there,” Nemeth recalled. “They told us we were lucky to be alive, and one of them said that if we had fallen off the tube, we’d probably be dead.”
The turbulent water bruised Nemeth’s back, and kept them from escaping. Carvalho could barely hold onto her phone when she called 911 from the Willamette River Aug. 9. Then they recorded a message to their loved ones.
The sisters are the latest of five rescues Eugene Springfield Fire has made this summer at the low-head dam — infrastructure from a bygone era of water wheels that once powered mills. The dam creates a push-and-pull effect, a hydraulic loop so strong that even a life jacket may not save someone.
She and her sister brought Intex tubes made of heavy vinyl, durable enough to withstand light scraping against rocks, and even learned to tie nautical knots to keep them together.
But the only thing that could have prepared them for this dam, she said, was a clear warning sign. No area government is yet willing to post such a sign.
Why isn’t there a sign?
About 30 minutes north of Eugene, in the Long Tom River that flows through Monroe, big red signs warn of danger: “submerged dam” and “take out now.”
The Army Corps of Engineers coordinated with private land owners and installed it in 2022, after a couple had died kayaking there. But the Corps can’t hang such warnings along the Willamette River, said Kerry Solan, a spokesperson for the Portland District.
“Our authority and ability to act are defined by federal law. This means a low-head dam would have to fall within our congressionally authorized missions,” Sloan said. “The millrace low-head dam area does not meet that criterion.”
That’s because the Corps didn’t build it. The low-head dam emerged more than a century ago in the form of a beaver-like heap of brush, rock and timber, later rebuilt in concrete slabs by the now-shuttered Chambers Power Co.
The company had applied for a permit from the Corps, but that documentation has since been lost, according to an architectural historian who researched its origins and how that history might shape accountability today.
No government agency has been willing to accept jurisdiction of the low-head dam or shoulder the costs of it. But they are still paying for it through resource-intensive rescues that strain emergency responders.
“We don’t have a city charter mandate to actually do this work,” said Jesse Donohue, who leads the water-rescue team for Eugene Springfield Fire. “We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do, and at this point, we’ve gotten so good at it because we’ve done so many.”
The cost
A water rescue at the low-head dam typically launches from two ramps: one near D Street by the Eastgate Woodlands and one in Alton Baker Park. One boat heads to the dam and the other is stationed downstream for safety. Both crews have three swimmers each.
From the shore, a battalion chief coordinates alongside an ambulance.
Donohue said his team has responded to five rescues at the dam since June 1. That’s about 10% of the roughly 50 water rescue calls the agency handles each year.
When asked by Lookout Eugene-Springfield about the cost, Donohue didn’t have an estimate.
“The bigger question really, I think that would be easier to feel confident with, even though it’s not a numerical answer, is the bigger cost to the safety of the community,” Donohue said. “When we’re out there doing those rescues, there are holes in a city where our fire and emergency responses are diminished significantly.”
Donohue echoed jurisdictional limitations that putting up a sign is “complicated,” though he acknowledged the handmade warnings posted in the river by what he called a good Samaritan. It directs people to stay right into a channel, but hidden hazards persist there, too, including downed logs and fast-moving water.
Nemeth and Carvalho never saw the handmade sign. From their starting point at Day Island Park, the kiosk offered no clear warning, and people gave them mixed advice. Some said to stay left.
So that’s how Carvalho and Nemeth veered as they approached the low-head dam. They spun, dropped, and then were stuck.
“I was kicking the cement as hard as I could to see if it would let me go, and every time I did my tube almost turned over,” said Nemeth, whose panic spiked when she thought about her son.
When she arrived home that evening after the rescue, Nemeth, an artist, took to painting as a way to work through the traumatic experience.
Nemeth’s brush strokes show angels lingering between tall trees along the shore. Weeks later, she and her sister are still processing their Aug. 9 rescue.
From the river bank Monday, looking outward at the water that almost cost them their lives, Carvalho said, “We survived.”
They worry others may not have the same fate.
