Oakledge death prompts study of oil platforms

Jess Aloe
Burlington Free Press

The drowning death of Burlington teenager Christian Kibabu in Oakledge Park last week has prompted the mayor to order a review of its lifeguard staffing policies, rescue response and a look at the history and ownership of the oil platforms offshore.

In a Tuesday evening email, obtained as part of a public records request by the Burlington Free Press, Fire Chief Steven Locke called for an urgent meeting to review the specifics of Mayor Miro Weinberger's request.

Kibabu, who would have been a senior at Burlington High School next fall, drowned while swimming to one of the platforms, about 160 yards off the beach of the city park. The structures, known as bollards or dolphins, are popular swimming destinations. 

Members of the boys Burlington High School soccer team gather together during a vigil for Christian Kibabu at Oakledge Park in Burlington on Wednesday, July 12, 2017.  The 17-year-old BHS student and team member drowned in Lake Champlain on Monday.

In the days following Kibabu's death, city officials, including the Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO) Director Noelle MacKay, sent off a flurry of emails to find out more about the bollards: the 20th-century structures used to "facilitate pumping petroleum products from barges to associated tank farms on the waterfront," according to a 2012 Army Corps of Engineers report. 

The Army engineers had come to town to remove three of the eight bollards, a project that began in 2005 with the Vermont federal delegation pushing for federal funding and ended in 2014. 

The three removed were selected because of their navigational hazards. The two in Oakledge Park, along with three others along the Burlington shore, were kept because of their potential economic and recreational uses. 

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Specifically, a 2008 archaeological survey of the bollards found they weren't eligible to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places — but they were popular SCUBA diving sites. 

"The [Lake Champlain Maritime Museum] believes that the value of these structures as dive sites far outweighs their negative characteristics," wrote Adam Kane, the then-director of the museum.

The two in Oakledge are used by the Waterfront Diving Center, said Jonathan Eddy, co-owner of the center. The structures are one of several sites around Burlington used by the center. 

"There is some marine life around there," Eddy said. They're also good for navigation and for their structure. 

The depth of the water around the two platforms varies depending on the water levels in the lake, but is roughly 20 feet, Eddy said. 

The land bordering Lake Champlain that became Oakledge Park was deeded to the city in 1987 by the Mobil Oil Corporation — originally named the Standard Oil Company, which built the bollards. 

In the document gifting the city the land, the company reserves "the right to operate, construct, maintain, repair, replace and otherwise use a dolphin and related facilities located in the waters of Lake Champlain for the purpose of loading into and discharging from barges and other vessels petroleum and petroleum products."

That means the oil company, or its corporate descendants, retains ownership, in the city's understanding, said Katie Vane, a spokesperson for the mayor. The bollards' ownership gets tricky if the oil companies no longer claim them, she said.

CEDO director MacKay recounted discussions she had regarding whether the bollards were considered abandoned property in the days immediately following Kibabu's death.

"They were originally owned by various oil companies," she wrote. "The issue to remove abandoned property out of the Lake is finding $ to pay for it." She went on to say that she had discussed the issue with the state's historic preservation office, who had told her they believe that abandoned property in the lake would become the responsibility of the state. 

"I do not believe the state owns these bollards," said Laura Trieschmann, the state's historic preservation officer. 

Who does, she said, is "not totally an easy question." She said she did not know who does own the bollards.

Vane referred questions about whether the platforms had been abandoned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mark Lulka, who oversaw the Corps' bollards project in Vermont, did not return a phone call on Wednesday.

In the wake of Kibabu's death, city officials scrambled to pull together information about the bollards and the bollards removal project, including putting in a call to Lulka.

The federal government paid about $1.5 million to remove the three bollards, according to an email written by CEDO staffer Kirsten Merriman Shapiro recounting her conversation with Lulka.

The Corps thought the appropriation would only cover the removal of two bollards, but was pleased when it covered three, Shapiro wrote. 

"New administration in DC so this type of appropriation very unlikely," she wrote.

A review of the city's lifeguard policy is ongoing after last Friday's meeting. 

Oakledge Park does not have permanent lifeguards. The city's Department of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront only provides lifeguards for North Beach. 

Free Press archives show that all three city beaches were staffed in the mid-1990s, but the city faced financial pressures to cut back on lifeguards. North Beach is the most popular of the three.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe