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<br /> <br /> <br />Capital Improvement Project <br />2024 through 2028 <br />PROJECT # CW-50 <br />PROJECT NAME: Rescue Boat <br />Project Year: 2026 <br />Department: Fire <br />Program: Citywide <br />Project Type: Other Equipment <br />Useful Life (Years): 10 <br />Contact Person: Public Safety Director <br /> <br />Project Description: <br />B21 14' Zodiac boat <br />Project Justification: <br />Many people come to Lino Lakes to enjoy the many perks of Anoka County’s largest park and Lino Lakes’ residents pride <br />themselves on having such a beautiful natural resource in their back yards. With having this vast natural resource in the <br />middle of our city, comes the great responsibility of the Public Safety Department to have adequate equipment to respond <br />to a variety of calls within in the County Park and waterways. Being able to reach the public in the event of an emergency <br />while they are stranded on the water is currently a great burden on our Public Safety staff. Most of the lakes in the <br />County Park are very shallow and with shallow water comes the issue of vegetation growing to the surface the lakes <br />throughout the park very quickly every spring. The boat we received from the split with Centennial Fire is an inadequate <br />piece of rescue equipment for the type of waterways located throughout Lino Lakes. The current Zodiac boat is sufficient <br />for accessing 90% of Centerville Lake and 50% of Peltier Lake. Once the high water in the spring resides and the weeds <br />have grown to the surface of our waters (typically in May), the Zodiac boat cannot access any waterway that does not <br />have a DNR maintained boat launch (Centerville and Peltier Lakes). The Zodiac boat needs at least 18”-24” of water to <br />operate (depending on the amount of people in the boat) and cannot be used in most of our neighborhood holding ponds <br />either. The 14’ Zodiac boat does not have enough space to transport a back boarded patient (unless placed on top of the <br />sides of the boat), the staff needed to get the patient into the boat and is initiate for delivering patient care. <br /> <br />Our Public Safety personnel had two calls, for three stranded victims in the last year where they were unable to reach the <br />patients with the current Zodiac boat. One call was on Marshan Lake, neither our Zodiac boat nor Forest Lake’s fan boat <br />was able to reach the victim and a citizen in a canoe was the one who rescued the victim an hour after the original call to <br />911. The second call was for two victims stranded on a jet ski at the far North end of Peltier Lake; Forest Lake, <br />Washington County, Anoka County and the DNR was not able to assist our staff with the proper equipment to make the <br />rescue. Our personnel were able to get within 100 yards of the two victims with the Zodiac boat and had to swim in water <br />rescue suits (not designed for long swims) to reach the victims. Once our staff reached the victims, they had to then <br />swim the victims back to the boat and where able to return the victims to the boat launch an hour and a half after the <br />original call was made to 911. If either of these calls were a life or death situation, we would have lost three lives due to <br />93