From New York Times

LA CROSSE, Wis., Oct. 22 (AP) — This month, searchers combing the Mississippi River found the body of the eighth college-age man in nine years to disappear from one of the taverns here and turn up dead in a river.

Tara Walters/Associated Press

A memorial in La Crosse, Wis., where Luke Homan, 21, drowned in the Mississippi River.

La Crosse officials have debated for years how to keep drunken students safe, but some say there may be no easy answer for a town with three colleges, three rivers and $3 pitchers of beer.

“I’m not sure anything we do can prevent a future tragedy,” Mayor Mark Johnsrud said.

Some officials want to rein in what many say is a culture of binge drinking. Others have proposed fencing off the scenic waterfront.

But solutions have so far eluded this community, where drinking-related drownings have claimed lives for years. The city’s first recorded alcohol-related drowning was in 1867, the mayor said.

Thousands of students attend the University of Wisconsin campus here, as well as Viterbo University and Western Technical College. Downtown bars offering cheap alcohol cater to young drinkers.

The Vibe, where the most recent victim, Luke Homan, was last seen alive, offers an all-you-can-drink special for $5. Shots are a dollar. A sign in the bar’s window proclaims: “You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.”

Down the street, Brothers sells dollar beers on Wednesdays. The Helm has 50-cent schnapps and $3 pitchers from midnight to 1:30 a.m.

The community has a long tradition of drinking. Thousands of people converge on La Crosse every fall for Oktoberfest, which lasts several days and is popular for its abundant beer. On days when the wind blows just right, the smells of City Brewery waft through downtown.

Cathy Long, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse, said drinking was too deeply entrenched in La Crosse. “The problem is the culture is already up on a pedestal in this town,” Ms. Long said.

The city lies where the Black and La Crosse Rivers empty into the Mississippi. Hemmed in by rugged bluffs, La Crosse is known for its scenery.

But the waterfront can be deadly. Investigators say that a college wrestler who died in 2004, Jared Dion, fell off a Mississippi River levee that is also used as a pedestrian walkway and a dock for visiting paddlewheel boats. The levee had no railing.

A task force investigating the drownings made 19 recommendations including building gates to the levee, creating alternative forms of entertainment and limiting Oktoberfest to one weekend.

But only a handful of those suggestions were adopted. Over time, the focus on drownings faded, Alderwoman Andrea Richmond said.

“Everybody kind of let it drop,” Ms. Richmond said. “We’ve done nothing.”

Searchers found Mr. Homan’s body on Oct. 2, not far from where Mr. Dion was discovered. Preliminary toxicology reports put Mr. Homan’s blood-alcohol level at 0.32 percent, four times the legal limit.

“They need to do something more down by the river,” said Joe Werner, 22, a teammate of Mr. Homan’s on the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse basketball team.

But Mayor Johnsrud does not want fences or gates to mar Riverside Park’s natural beauty or to send a message that La Crosse embraces binge drinking.

He proposes spending $60,000 on motion-activated lights in the park to alert drunks when they are close to the water. The City Council will consider the lights in November.

The mayor said community groups needed to remind students about the dangers of binge drinking.

“It’s a behavior issue,” he said.

Mary Torstveit, a prevention services official at the University of Wisconsin, said students living off campus were largely on their own.

Drinking “just seems to be such a standard part of Wisconsin culture and La Crosse culture,” Ms. Torstveit said. “We’ll always be fighting that. At some point, we have to start working on personal responsibility.”

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“I’m not sure anything we do can prevent a future tragedy,” Mayor Mark Johnsrud said.

There’s always something that can be done. I have personally met with UWL and Viterbo student leaders to fully support a new project called Operation: River Watch.

The goal of this project is to have all three campuses come together and help protect our own student body. Students can volunteer to work patrol shifts at Riverside Park on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 11pm-1am or 1am-3am. . The shifts consist of four students which are split into groups of two. There is a La Crosse Police Officer assigned to each shift, and give the students a cell phone to communicate with the police at the touch of a button.

I realize this project is just kicking off the ground, but I hope the mayor recognizes this effort after the press conference on Tuesday, October 31st, in Riverside Park at 4:00pm (time subject to change).

More to come on this…

Ross

This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 11:01 pm and is filed under La Crosse WI, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.