Dimple Rock, a dangerous boulder in the whitewater of the lower Youghiogheny River in Fayette County, will be left as it is, but state officials promise an increased focus on safety education, warnings and alternatives for boaters who wish to avoid it.

	Jason Plotkin, The York Dispatch via AP A kayaker maneuvers around Dimple Rock in the Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle in this file photo. Click photo for larger image. Graphic: Dimple Rock / A turbulent history

The decision, announced yesterday by state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Michael DiBerardinis, follows a five-year engineering study of the rock and analysis of six options that ranged from removing it to creating a collar around it to doing nothing.

By deciding to leave it alone, Mr. DiBerardinis said, state officials avoid the chance that rather than solve the problem, they might instead create new hazards.

"There are risks associated with whitewater rafting, and we will continue to work to make sure that boaters are aware of those risks," Mr. DiBerardinis said.

Since Ohiopyle State Park opened in 1975, an estimated 2 million people have rafted down the lower Youghiogheny River, considered one of the best whitewater areas in the eastern United States. Park visitors can run the rapids in their own equipment or on guided rafting tours offered by four park concessionaires.

DCNR spokeswoman Christina Novak said the department will speak to the rafting companies that operate at the state park and increased safety measures might be written into future contracts. The contracts with the concessionaires are negotiated every 10 years, with the state receiving 7.5 percent of their annual adjusted gross receipts.

Mark McCarty, owner of Laurel Highlands River Tours since 1978, learned of the decision last night and did not want to comment on it until he'd heard from state officials, but said he would abide by whatever safety directives the state handed down.

"I'll have to defer to their decisions," he said. "It's their river."

Mr. McCarty said there are many safety procedures that the rafting companies operate under, including the showing of a video and the use of trained guides.

"There are many [dangerous] places on the river and Dimple is one of them," he said.

Since 1976, Dimple Rock has been the scene of countless accidents in which adventurers in rafts, canoes and kayaks have been caught in the roiling river and flipped into the water. Of the 21 deaths recorded on the lower Youghiogheny River in the past 30 years, 18 were related to boating, and half of those occurred in Dimple Rock Rapid and nearby Swimmers Rapid.

Three of the drownings occurred in the summer of 2000 -- two within 10 days of each other -- prompting grieving families and local authorities to demand that state officials investigate ways to make riding on the river safer.

Dimple Rock, a massive, triangle-shaped chunk of brown Pottsville sandstone, is precariously positioned on the left side of the river at a point where the waters are squeezed into a turbulent passage. While most rapids are run straight on, Dimple Rock requires paddlers to approach it at a 2 o'clock angle to the right.

The whirling water slamming into the rock falls back upon itself, creating a "pillow" that can flip boaters, pushing them several feet below the surface. The powerful current then can keep them there.

What's worse, there is a ledge and a large cavity at the base of the rock where people can get trapped. That was where 16-year-old Andrea Yealy of Adams County drowned while kayaking with a friend in September 2000.

It was at the daylong inquest into Miss Yealy's death that Fayette County Coroner Dr. Phillip E. Reilly called for a review by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which oversees Ohiopyle State Park. That call, he said, earned him a reputation as "the guy that wanted to dynamite the rock, and that's not really true."

"But people read about the deaths and say something should be done," he said.

The engineering study, part of a larger contract with the Massachusetts-based Maguire Group, cost the state just under $100,000 and was completed a year ago.

According to Ron Huey, vice president at Maguire Group's Pittsburgh office, it involved a scale model of the river and the rocks -- built at the Penn State University hydraulic laboratory -- measuring 48 feet long and 5 feet high. Water was rushed through the model to evaluate various alternatives.

The result, Mr. Huey said, was the six options presented to the state.

"We made no recommendation," he said. "We gave them six options, and told them the advantages and disadvantages of each."

Dr. Reilly, who has been critical of the state in the past, had not seen a copy of the secretary's decision yesterday, but said he had a meeting scheduled today with park Superintendent John Hallas at which he expected to discuss the options that the state faced.

"The state secretary does not come down and talk to the families that have lost someone there," Dr. Reilly said. "The superintendent and the rangers up there, they have to bear the tremendous stress of trying to explain to families ... as do I as coroner. The park people are very sensitive to the issue."

Dr. Reilly praised steps taken by the state in the past five years, including the posting of warning signs and changes in the rafting companies' pre-adventure video that shifted the focus from how fun whitewater can be to how dangerous it can be. But the most important step, he said, was the undertaking of the study.

"[Whitewater rafting] is not entirely a fun thing," he said. "There are very real, not-imaginary hazards there. It's not a ride at Kennywood."