Posted on October 13, 2020
Work on the Municipal Lake is expected to go well into next year.
BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Work continues behind the scenes for Bryan’s $100 million Travis Bryan Midtown Park. Excavation has started as crews deepen and improve the municipal lake. Decades ago it was polluted with arsenic after industrial pollution further upstream that spanned many years.
Now contaminated sediment is being removed as crews work to deepen the Bryan Municipal Lake to six feet and remove arsenic pollution from the lake bed They have to keep dust levels down and there’s a special vehicle wash to contain the arsenic as crews relocate contaminated dirt.
“And as part of that same decontamination zone is where we have the truck wash so any vehicles that go through that contaminated zone and then come back out are supposed to go through that wash,” said Paul Kaspar, Bryan City Engineer.
“Right now we’re fortunate in that the material that’s coming out is dry enough that they’re able to completely remove it right away from the site so whether it’s going to the landfill or being disposed of offsite or we’re using some very clean material to build some of the landscape berms on site,” Kaspar said.
Kaspar gave a tour of the entire park project. The new Midtown Park Boulevard is nearly finished and a new traffic signal is now flashing yellow.
“I think one of the first things you’ll probably see open up, it’ll be a race between the indoor sports facility being open, The Big Shots folks they’ve expressed that they’re planning on starting their construction in 2021,” said Kaspar. “We don’t have a certain date yet but we expect to see them in a race sort of with us in who’s going vertical with a structure the fastest in 2021.”
Travis Field is also getting renovated with new little league playing fields ready next spring.
“I think it’s a park that’s going to provide a little bit for everybody and I think that was the goal initially to not only tap into sport tourism but also provide a place people want to go and hang out like the Central Park of Bryan,” said Linda Cornelius, Bryan Parks, Recreation and Facilities Services Director.
Something else new is called a siltation and detention pond. It’s about 15 feet deep and it helps the city maintain the lake levels downstream. It will also trap silt so there’ll be less maintenance in the long run for the lake they are improving.
“Where we have the fence up today, around the park it’s going to remain up through most of 2021 because we’re having heavy equipment running back and forth it’s really not something we have a safe place for folks to enjoy part of the park in Bryan,” said Kaspar.
The city expects to get more testing results on the arsenic levels back soon. So far staff say it’s been what they anticipated. Big Shots Golf and the new indoor sports complex should be finished by early 2022.
Source: kbtx.com
