Posted on August 24, 2022
Ebensburg Borough Council took the first step Monday in exploring the possibilities of dredging Lake Rowena.
Borough Council approved an agreement with TransSystems during its monthly meeting Monday to perform the underwater survey and soil testing at a cost not to exceed $10,000 to help see if dredging the lake is a possibility for the borough.
Borough Manager Kelly Cook told council that original belief to work with Robindale Energy was not a viable option and that staff recently received word that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is working on a project in a nearby community in the next several years and is interested in working with the borough.
“It would really be in our benefit, too, because they are self-licensing or -permitting,” Cook said. “So it would make things a lot easier.”
Matt Koenigsberg, the borough’s engineer through TranSystems, told council that a sample would need to be taken from the lake and sent to Penn State to determine if it could be used for agricultural purposes such as growing grass.
Koenigsberg said that the last time the lake was dredged was about the late 1970s or early ’90s and added that he has been fishing in Lake Rowena since the 1990s and that he did not believe the lake was as deep as it used to be.
According to Koenigsberg, in addition to saving the borough permitting costs, DEP would also be able to haul the wet materials in a sealed truck instead of the borough needing to lay it on an embankment to dry out before it could be used.
“So there are a lot of benefits,” Cook noted, adding that the only problem was that the borough needed to spend money to see if they could even proceed.
