Rochester Dam (Case Eagle Park)

Case Eagle Park in Rochester (about 0.38mi. downstream of CTH.D / Main Street) has a dam with four main release gates at center river (which are controlled by Racine County). The left-most part of the dam is a spillway/overflow area with a series of generally evenly spaced (narrowly enough to barely fit a boat through) metal rods standing vertically from the cement slab. In the past, these supported planks standing edge-wise, to increase the pool height just a bit, though I haven't seen them in place for years now. Between the spillway and the release gates lies slightly higher arching cement slab. Down-slope of this area is filled with large rocks. (Water is virtually never allowed to pass over this area, but even if some freakish flooding would cause this area to have water, passage by any watercraft would be impossible or at least strongly inadvisable, as it would likely cause boat damage and possible bodily harm.)

Water passing under the left pair of gates sheets swiftly across cement before hitting the pool below. At times, sweet looking wave/holes form where the flow hits the pool. However, the riverbed in this swift outflow is littered with large boulders to limit scouring of the riverbed. Any whitewater boater attempting to play the outflow will regularly encounter these rocks with their paddle and likely with their boat. Any flips or swims here would be brutal! Thus, whitewater playboating here is very highly NOT recommended unless you are sufficiently skilled and justifiably confident of staying upright!

Water is seldom released from the right pair of gates, but when they are in use (whether or not the left gates are also open) the outflow generally does not form features nearly as good as when only the left pair of gates are in use.

There are times that wave/hole gets a bit 'frothy', increasing dramatically the likelihood of flipping and suffering a 'close encounter of the worst kind' with the rocks in the outflow. Each paddler must decide their comfort level ... you may wish to wear a full-face helmet, elbow-pads, shoulder pads, hockey gloves, ....