Seven die in holiday crashes, no arrests for drunken boating

At least seven people died on Iowa roadways this past holiday weekend, and five of the dead were on motorcycles when they wrecked. Drunken driving arrests under the new .08 law were up, but Rod Slings of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says there weren’t any drunken boating arrests despite high use on all the waterways.Slings says three stops were made on waterways in the Dubuque area, but all the boaters were under .10 percent blood alcohol level — which is still the legal limit for operating a boat. There was a near-drowning on Saylorville Lake on Saturday afternoon, at about 5:30. A three-year-old was drifting near the vortex near the intake of the reservoir, and the toddler’s father who rescued the child nearly drowned. He was revived on the shore by emergency crews. A four-year-old drowned in Coralville Lake on Sunday.