Posted on February 8, 2019
LA VALLE — The Lake Redstone Protection District Board is preparing to request $6 million from Sauk County to help fund its estimated $7 million dredging project.
At the Jan. 31 special board meeting at the La Valle Town Hall, the Lake Redstone Protection District Board approved assembling an updated presentation for the Feb. 14 Sauk County Conservation, Planning and Zoning committee meeting to request funds to dredge 26 bays along Lake Redstone. The board will send a representative from Aryes Associates, the protection districts adviser, to the meeting to answer questions committee members may have.
It would be the second time the lakes protection district board presented its dredging project to the committee, after presenting it at the Jan. 10 meeting. The committee meeting is scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. Feb. 14 at the West Square Building in room 213 of the Sauk County Courthouse at 505 Broadway Street in Baraboo.
Lake Redstone Protection District Chairman Chuck Ecklund said the board is requesting a $3 million grant and a $3 million no interest loan from the county.
At the protection districts special board meeting, Dredging Committee Member Dick Fish provided an updated timeline for the dredging project and shared information with the board to prepare for potentially opening the project for bid later this month. The updated scheduled includes plans to announce bids to dredging contractors Feb. 22, opening the bids and a selecting a contractor in April. The protection district is hoping to present the project to taxpayers May 11.
The protection district is also looking into other grants as potential funding sources and FEMA funding before taking the project to taxpayers.
Additional sediment
Based on a new survey conducted by Aryes Associates last fall, the 26 bays contain an additional 31,000 cubic yards of sediment from the 2018 floods that could add to its estimated dredging costs. The protection district is looking into potential FEMA funds to help cover the costs of dredging that additional sediment. The protection district is scheduled to meet with FEMA at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 5 at La Valle Town Hall to talk about potential dredging funds as well as additional projects that sustained damage by the 2018 floods, like Meronek Meadows’s damage to its earthen berm.
Last June, the protection district board rejected bids to look into additional costs savings for bids that came in at $3 million to $6 million from three companies to dredge the original amount of 106,000 cubic yards of sediment from the 26 bays. Since then, the protection district has looked at several cost saving methods including having ten listed sites for sediment disposal to help cut down on costs for hydraulic dredging.
The board is also examining the amount of sediment per bay to potentially reduce the amount needed to be dredged on a case by case basis and looking into mechanical dredging. The board discussed both types of dredging and which would be better for the lake but no action was taken.
According to Sandling Industrial Services, a industrial equipment and services provider based out of Texas, mechanical dredging involves mechanically gathering sediment at the bottom surface of a body of water and “may or may not involve draining of the lake” while hydraulic dredging involves using a vacuum like device to suck a mixture of sediment and water and transfers it through a pipeline to another location.
“It needs more exploration to see what is involved,” Ecklund said. “We’re still in the very beginning of exploring mechanical dredging.”
Source: wiscnews.com
