12-09-2024 Council Meeting Agenda Packet

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Capital Improvement Project 2025 through 2029 PROJECT # CW-50 PROJECT NAME: Rescue Boat Project Year: 2026 Department: Fire Program: I Citywide Project Type: I Other Equipment Useful Life (Years): 110 1 Contact Person: I Public Safety Director Project Description: B21 14' Zodiac boat Project Justification: Many people come to Lino Lakes to enjoy the many perks of Anoka County's largest park and Lino Lakes' residents pride themselves on having such a beautiful natural resource in their back yards. With having this vast natural resource in the middle of our city, comes the great responsibility of the Public Safety Department to have adequate equipment to respond to a variety of calls within in the County Park and waterways. Being able to reach the public in the event of an emergency while they are stranded on the water is currently a great burden on our Public Safety staff. Most of the lakes in the County Park are very shallow and with shallow water comes the issue of vegetation growing to the surface the lakes throughout the park very quickly every spring. The boat we received from the split with Centennial Fire is an inadequate piece of rescue equipment for the type of waterways located throughout Lino Lakes. The current Zodiac boat is sufficient for accessing 90% of Centerville Lake and 50% of Peltier Lake. Once the high water in the spring resides and the weeds have grown to the surface of our waters (typically in May), the Zodiac boat cannot access any waterway that does not have a DNR maintained boat launch (Centerville and Peltier Lakes). The Zodiac boat needs at least 18"-24" of water to operate (depending on the amount of people in the boat) and cannot be used in most of our neighborhood holding ponds either. The 14' Zodiac boat does not have enough space to transport a back boarded patient (unless placed on top of the sides of the boat), the staff needed to get the patient into the boat and is initiate for delivering patient care. Our Public Safety personnel had two calls, for three stranded victims in the last year where they were unable to reach the patients with the current Zodiac boat. One call was on Marshan Lake, neither our Zodiac boat nor Forest Lake's fan boat 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 911. The second call was for two victims stranded on a jet ski at the far North end of Peltier Lake; Forest Lake, Washington County, Anoka County and the DNR was not able to assist our staff with the proper equipment to make the rescue. Our personnel were able to get within 100 yards of the two victims with the Zodiac boat and had to swim in water rescue suits (not designed for long swims) to reach the victims. Once our staff reached the victims, they had to then 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 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 insufficient rescue equipment.