KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

Phillip Swicegood fishes from a concrete area above the Pigg River low-head dam at Veterans' Memorial Park in Rocky Mount. Scott Martin, Franklin County's commerce tourism director, called low-head dams such as this one "death traps."

ROCKY MOUNT -- He was a strong swimmer and an experienced outdoorsman who knew his way around the local rivers in a canoe.

But when the high waters of the Blackwater River swept Chris Odum over a low-head dam on the afternoon of June 6, the churning river swallowed up the 38-year-old father from Union Hall.

The culprit? A feature of the river known as a hydraulic, the turbulent water holes that swirl below low-head dams.

"If an engineer wanted to design a death trap on a river ... you would end up with a low-head dam," said Scott Martin, director of commerce and leisure services in Franklin County.

On Tuesday, with memories of the drowning still fresh, Martin proposed three options for remaking the county's other low-head dam to the board of supervisors.

The second dam sits on the Pigg River at Veterans' Memorial Park, near the center of Rocky Mount, and is much easier to reach than the dam on the Blackwater.

Martin weighed the costs and benefits of removing the dam, building an in-stream park or "facing" the dam, which involves adding obstructions into the hydraulic to change the motion of the water.

He estimated costs for the renovation projects at $20,000 to face the dam to $316,000 to build the in-stream park, which would space out the disruptions in the water and open up some opportunities for tubing or boating.

A fourth option would be to take no action now, he said.

The supervisors asked for time to consider the plans, and floated the possibility of a partnership with Rocky Mount, which owns the dam.

For two years, Martin has eyed the Franklin County dams with concern. They were installed to allow for water to be withdrawn from the river, but had become obstacles for traffic along the river.

They were an inconvenience for boaters going down the river and a barrier for fish going up the river, Martin said. This was particularly worrisome for the Roanoke logperch, a cigar-sized fish that was placed on the endangered species list in 1989.

And the incident on the Blackwater added a sense of urgency about eliminating the danger of the dams.

Tuesday at the Pigg River, Phillip Swicegood fished for catfish at the edge of the low-head dam. The water below the dam looked no more threatening than a whirlpool spa, but Swicegood knew better.

"It's like the spin cycle. It'll pull you back under," he said.

Roanoke has faced a similar issue recently. The city removed a dam from the Roanoke River near Wasena Park in March. It was the site of at least one drowning in the 1990s.

In other business before the board, the embattled sheriff of Franklin County faced some scrutiny over a small personnel issue.

Sheriff Ewell Hunt proposed making a largely nominal change to his force: turning his "major" into a "chief deputy."

The move was better in line with the duties of the positions and fit with a title worn at other agencies in the state, Hunt told the board. It did not come with an increase in pay.

However, the sheriff faced a round of questioning about the change in title from Supervisor David Cundiff, who previously worked at the sheriff's office.

"A rose by any other name should smell so sweet," declared Vice Chairman Wayne Angell, invoking Shakespeare.

The board approved the change 6-1, with Cundiff casting the dissenting vote.

The Franklin County Sheriff's Office is the subject of an ongoing special grand jury investigation into employee compensation and evidence handling and was recently audited by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles over the use of a traffic enforcement grant.