Officials keeping constant watch of threatened dam

Highway 75 remains closed near Bong Recreation Area

Conservation wardens are among a team of public safety and emergency workers keeping round-the-clock watch on Kenosha County’s Vern Wolf Lake Dam which is threatening to fail under the weight of heavy recent rains and embankment erosion.

“We have a system in place to protect public health and safety,” Warden Supervisor Jennifer Niemeyer said Saturday. Niemeyer heads the warden team for Kenosha, Racine and Walworth counties. “All possible affected homeowners also have been notified.”

The Vern Wolf Lake dam is in the Richard Bong State Recreation Area, where some trails in and around the recreation area have been posted as closed. The Bong recreation area is eight miles southeast of Burlington.

Niemeyer’s warden team along with DNR park rangers are working with the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department to staff barricades on Highway 75, which is closed to traffic where the lake is closest to the road. That stretch is between Highway 142 and Highway K.

“Vern Wolf Lake is not fed by any streams – only by run-off,” Niemeyer said. “It is hard to predict where the water will go if the dam gives way.”

However, Niemeyer says there is an area of low farmland to the east where water could be retained if the dam should fail.

Niemeyer said DNR dam engineers are monitoring and assessing the dam.

The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department, Public Works Department and Emergency Management officials along with the Dover and Kansasville fire departments and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation also are involved in monitoring the situation, Niemeyer said.

“The wardens and rangers will provide 24-hour coverage until the dam engineers advise us there is no longer a hazard,” Niemeyer said.