Posted on December 17, 2018
Five years after the 2013 floods devastated the Loveland area, crews are still dealing with indirect effects of the floodwaters. One of those effects is particularly abrasive — the amounts of sand and detritus that have ended up in Lake Loveland.
Crews from local company Coulson Excavating are working on the lake bed this month to remove a new sandbar that has built up since the last, far larger, one was removed in 2016.
While the first sandbar formed after 100-year floodwaters pushed thousands of tons of sand from the Big Thompson River into the lake, the second sandbar formed as an indirect consequence of the floods: It was created from sediment disturbed by the flood repair work done upstream of the lake in the Big Thompson Canyon, said Ken Coulson, president of Coulson Excavating.
The low water level of the lake this winter, which is partially due to weather and partially due to strategic drainage, has made it possible for crews hired by the Greeley-Loveland Irrigation Company to make some needed repairs.
Two years ago, initial estimates were that Coulson Excavating would remove 10,000 cubic yards of silt from the flood-created sandbar. However, the company ultimately trucked out 24,800 cubic yards of sand, enough to fill the playing surface of a football field 14 feet deep.
Coulson said the company is expecting this year’s effort to be smaller, and yield between 10,000 and 15,000 cubic yards of material. On the high end, that’s about 54 million pounds of sand to haul away, and crews are hoping to be finished with the job before Christmas, said Jim Sinclair with Coulson Excavating.
Lovelanders have been known over the years to use the sandbars for playing, sunbathing and picnicking in warm weather. Despite the beachy fun, the sand needs to be removed from the lake because its presence decreases the lake’s storage capacity and blocks flow, Coulson said.
After spring runoffs from mountain snowpack fill the lake each spring, the Greeley-Loveland Irrigation Company distributes Lake Loveland water to farms east of the city.
When material is hauled out of the lake, it is not usable for any other purpose, so it is trucked to an old gravel pit on the east side of Loveland and buried, Coulson said.
Another objective of the work at Lake Loveland is to allow mechanical contractor Graycon Inc. to repair a leaking headgate, Coulson said.
Usually, the lake is 41 feet deep at its center, but has now been drained down to about 12 feet of water in the deepest part.
After the silt is dredged and repairs completed, the lake will be ready to refill with mountain runoff in the spring.
Source: Reporter-Herald
