Crews will soon begin shoring up the shoreline at a state-owned lake in northwest Iowa.
Ingham Lake in Emmet County is east of Wallingford. Iowa Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Rob Patterson says the project is focused on about a quarter mile of shoreline on the north side of the lake.
“There’s been a lot of wind and wave action on that shoreline and it’s caused pretty significant erosion, started to cause damage to the roadbed and threatening to have many of the large oak trees along the shoreline fall into the lake,” he says, “so we’re going to armor that shoreline with natural fieldstone to stop that erosion.”
Some trees will be removed to give crews access to the shore. The project may periodically limit public access to areas around the lake.
“Ingham Lake Road that goes from the county road back to our wildlife unit headquarters will be closed at times just to ensure the safety of the contractors doing the work as well as the people that might be going up and down that road,” Patterson says.
Ingham Lake is one of the 34 natural lakes in Iowa that were formed by retreating glaciers. European settlers in the area called it Mud Lake, but it was renamed in 1950 for Captain William Ingham. Ingham — a soldier, land surveyor and banker — was an early settler in neighboring Kossuth County.
(Reporting by Ed Funston, KILR, Estherville)