Posted on September 1, 2016
By Stephanie Price, The Woodstock Independent
Dredging of sediment from the bottom of Wonder Lake will continue into next year, but the most difficult part of the project has been completed.
Wonder Lake Manager Randy Stowe said the Master Property Owners Association, which owns and manages the 830-acre lake, wants to complete the ongoing project as quickly as possible, but the dredging will continue next summer. The project, started in June 2014, involves removing soil and rocks with a hydraulic dredging process through a pipe to a dry basin.
“We tackled the hardest spots first,” Stowe said. “Now we’re working in South Bay, where the largest volume of sediment will be collected, but it’s the least rocky and more organic so it’s easier to dredge.”
Stowe has reminded residents the MPOA has a fixed-fee $2.8 million contract with the dredging contractor, which is based upon the amount of sediment removed. If the contractor needs more time to finish the removal, that does not increase the cost of the project, he said.
Current dredging in the South Bay area is expected to continue past Labor Day weekend until the summer boating traffic slows down, Stowe said. In July, the MPOA initiated a no-wake zone in the southern part of South Bay after numerous incidents where lake users, particularly waters skiers and jet skis, came “dangerously close to the dredge, anchor barges and booster pump,” at a high rate of speed, according to the MPOA. Boaters who violate the no-wake zone could receive a ticket from the Wonder Lake Marine Patrol.
Some time next month, the dredging work will move to Wickline Island and O’Brian Shoals, two small islands on the lake. Removal of sediment in those areas is expected to be completed this season, Stowe said.
Next year’s plan is to finish dredging in South Bay and near the Nippersink inlet, he said.
Residents living along the lake have noticed a significant difference as the result of the dredging work, which, when completed, is expected to remove 470,000 cubic yards of sediment from the lake, enough to cover a football field 26 stories high, Stowe said.
The sediment is being deposited on what was farmland on Greenwood Road, north of Greenwood School.
“There were people living in West Bay, Lookout Point and White Oaks Bay who had a hard time even having a boat at their dock because they couldn’t get to the water,” Stowe said.
Once completed, the dredge will create an additional 10 acres of deeper, cleaner water. Wonder Lake is a man-made lake, created in 1929 when Nippersink Creek was dammed. Sediment from the creek and surrounding fields continues to flow into the lake and collect on the lake bed. In 2008, a Special Service Area taxing district was established to pay most of the nearly $3 million dredging expense.
A newly acquired grant will help prevent future sediment build-up. The Nippersink Watershed Association recently received notification it will receive an $847,000 grant from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Stowe said. While the grant doesn’t specifically provide money for dredging, it will help fund island and shoreline protection work to reduce sediment erosion in the future. Some money will be used for shoreline restoration work upstream from the lake, Stowe said.
Source: The Woodstock Independent
