After a tour boat capsized in a tunnellike cavern in western New York this week, killing a man and injuring nearly a dozen others, officials said they were investigating when the boat had last been inspected.
The 300-foot canal in the dimly lit cavern, the Lockport Cave in Lockport, N.Y., is privately owned and is not a navigable body of water.
As such, the narrow, flat-bottomed boat that was carrying 28 people on Monday operated in a regulatory limbo, officials said.
Kathy Hochul directed her administration to “look at all possible ways to prevent future tragedies,” a spokesman said on Tuesday.
But the governor’s spokesman, Matt Janiszewski, said that no state agency has jurisdiction over vessels in nonpublic, nonnavigable waterways.
Persons:
Kathy Hochul, ”, Matt Janiszewski
Organizations:
U.S . Coast Guard, Buffalo News
Locations:
New York, Lockport, N.Y, U.S, Niagara Falls