Posted on March 4, 2021
West Lake Park is going to need the full cooperation of the weather if swimming and fishing are to be allowed this summer.
The Scott County-owned complex off Interstate 280 contains four lakes, which have been drained as part of a multi-million dollar effort to improve water quality.
One lake in particular, the western-most Blue Grass Lake, needed considerable dredging to rid it of sediment. While dredging progress has been made, the spring thaw has created conditions that now make it impossible to use heavy equipment on the soft ground.
County Conservation officials hoped the project would be finished later this month, but it is not yet known whether the dredging, shoreline work and fish-habitat improvements will be finished for the summer season.
“… the contract is actually through the end of May, and the way it is going, it will probably take all that time to complete everything,” said Roger Kean, executive director of the Scott County Conservation Office. “That is why there is still a lot of uncertainty as to whether the lakes will re-fill in time for there to be a summer season for the beach, boat rentals and fishing yet this year.
“It is totally dependent on weather and rainfall amounts this coming spring and summer.”
The addition of improved fish habitats and replacement of the drain valve on Lake of the Hills is to continue until dredging can resume.
“There is actually small amounts of work to be done in all of the lakes, such as shoreline protection, finish grading and seeding and the fish habitat I mentioned previously, but the big item is the dredging, which impacts some of the other work,” Kean said Monday.
When the park was built in the 1960s, sediment control was largely non-existent.
