BELATED WARNINGS
County posts ‘No Swimming’ signs at park where teen drowned >>
HAMILTON » Mercer County is attempting to correct a gigantic oversight.
The Mercer County Park Commission has recently installed “No Swimming” signs at Roebling Park, where 17-year-old Marty Barchue drowned on June 21.
The new signs went up after The Trentonian reported there were no signs indicating that people could not swim at Roebling Park when Barchue jumped in the water with three of his friends and was swept away by a strong current.
A tour of the park on Wednesday showed that the Park Commission installed a “No Swimming” sign right at the spot where the Hamilton West High School student drowned at Rowan Lake in the Watson Woods section of the park. New signage was also placed in nearby Spring Lake.
Other signage was taken down at the entrance of Roebling Park outlining that alcohol, ATVs, dirt bikes, weapons, hunting, dumping and littering was prohibited in the park. That sign omitted any stance on swimming, even though on the Mercer County Park Commission website under rules and regulations, “swimming is prohibited in any body of water.”
It is not immediately clear if a new sign will go up at the entrance of the park.
A Mercer County spokesman did not respond to a message seeking comment.
At Spring Lake, which is also located in Roebling Park, a new sign that lists the rules reads there is “No Swimming” in the park.
Trying to previously defend the lack of warning to the public, Mercer County spokesman Julie Willmot said in June, “There are no ‘welcome swimmers’ signs, there are no buoys or lane markers indicating a safe area to enter the water.”
“The signage makes it clear that these are ‘tidal Delaware’ waters,” Willmot said in the email. “No swimming is permitted, and there are no lifeguards for that very reason.”
A previous tour of the Hamilton park by a Trentonian reporter after Barchue’s death revealed that none of the nine different signs in Roebling indicated whether swimming was permitted or prohibited. In fact, the term “swimming” was never mentioned in any of the signs.
Rowan Lake is connected to Crosswicks Creek, which is a tributary of the Delaware River.
Barchue vanished from the body of water during a strong thunderstorm that rumbled through the area.