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10 boating while drunk arrests made during weekend
Booze and boating don't mix.
State and county marine patrols made 10 operating while intoxicated arrests during the Fourth of July weekend on lakes Mendota, Monona and Waubesa, even with a slow, no-wake ordinance in effect.
"I don't believe we've ever had this many OWI arrests on the Madison lakes with normal patrols," said DNR conservation warden Dave Wood.
No extra patrols were brought in from surrounding counties because traffic was lighter than on a normal holiday weekend due to the slow, no-wake rules that applied to the entire surfaces of lakes Monona, Waubesa and Kegonsa and the shoreline of Mendota.
A first offense for OWI is a $438 fine, with mandatory alcohol assessment and a boating safety course.
One of the alleged drunken boaters arrested would be a three-time offender if convicted.
Six of the 18 boating fatalities in Wisconsin in 2007 were attributed to alcohol use. A record 322 boating OWIs were issued in the state in 2007.
