Posted on April 25, 2019
(ABC 6 News)– It’s long been a favorite spot for boaters, anglers and swimmers. And in a matter of days, work will resume on a make-over for one of the area’s premier lakes.
“The biggest concern the district has always had is clean water,” Andy Henschel said.
It’s a project designed to improve the health of Albert Lea’s Fountain Lake. And another year of dredging is about to begin.
“The dredging project in the Edgewater Bay area is looking at removing some of those high concentration phosphorous sediments, taking out 635 thousand cubic yards of sediment,” said Andy Henschel, administer of the Shell Rock River Watershed District.
“It’s going to take all the muck that’s built up over the years and we’ll get a little deeper water and we’ll get a lot better water quality out of it” added Danny Lugo at Bubba’s bait and tackle in Albert Lea.
“Last year they removed roughly 300-thousand cubic yards,” Andy Henschel explained. “We got a later start just because of permitting. And they’ll be starting here in the next week or two so that will help them get an earlier start.”
The dredge will be back next year, but in a different spot.
“They’ll move into the main part of the lake and Dane’s Bay so that’s another two year project,” Andy Henschel told us. “We have a total of 1.2 million cubic yards of removal, the two years in Edgewater Bay, which we’ve already done one year… and then 2020 and 2021 we’ll move into Dane’s Bay.”
And as for Fountain Lake’s occasional algae blooms:
“It will actually help reduce them or make them last a shorter amount of time because again we’re trying to reduce that internal phosphorous load that that algae feeds on,” Andy Henschel explained.
“We’re going to see a lot more fish, I think,” Danny Lugo said. “Almost like what we saw out on Pickerel Lake when they redid that, the water quality there are bigger northern out there, there are a lot more perch than there used to be out there.”
Source: kaaltv.com
