Planning continues for the restoration of a northern Iowa lake currently listed on the state’s list of imparied waters, due to high levels of algae.
Billie Willie is a naturalist for Kossuth County Conservation Board, which manages Smith Lake. “We want to take the lake back to what it was originally when it was clear water, it was deeper, families and everything came out, you know, and spend the whole day swimming, picnicking and stuff,” Willie said, “so we hooked up with the Iowa DNR lake restoration department and said: ‘Help us.'”
The DNR estimates the cost of the project will be over $5.9 million. Willie said they expect to drain the lake in September of next year. “We have a plan. We have a vision. Now it’s permitting. Once that’s done getting general contractors to come and bid the work to be done,” Willie said. “Right now, it looks like nothing’s happening because it’s all paperwork.”
Iowa has just 34 natural lakes. The rest are man-made. Smith Lake was constructed in the mid-1960s and Willie said once the lake is drained and the ground freezes, contractors will be able to excavate. “One of the things we’re going to do is we’re going to take the lake back to pretty close to its original depth,” Willie said. “Over the 60-70 years the lake’s been there, it’s just silted in and it is just very shallow right now.”
Plans call for four retention bays to be constructed around the 54 acre lake. “Where the main run in happens in the lake will kind of have like a big swimming pool, so now that silt and sediment will come into the bay and not run into the lake,” Willie said. “That will make it easier down the road in the next 30-year yeras. They can just clean out those bays and not have to do the whole lake.”
The state’s Lake Restoration Program was created in 2006 for publicly-owned lakes. Over the past 20 years, it has spent $172 million to improve the water clarity in 72 lakes in 55 counties.
(Reporting by Brian Wilson, KLGA, Algona)