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Delavan Lake dredging proposal detailed

DELAVAN TOWNSHIP — Residents this week will get a close look at plans to dredge Delavan Lake.

The Delavan Town Board will host public information sessions tonight and Saturday so residents can see details of the bid the board opened earlier this month.

The $1.53 million bid was the only one submitted for the project, Administrator John Olson said. Plans include removing 45,330 cubic feet of sediment from the channel on the west side of the Delavan Lake inlet, which is located on the north side of the lake.

The work is part of ongoing “maintenance” plans for the lake, he said.

Highway 50 goes around the north edge of the lake and crosses the inlet.

The board in March could decide whether to move forward with the project, Olson said.

The town would have to take out a loan to cover the cost of the work, he said. In addition, the board could create a special assessment to cover the cost.

The board also would have to decide whether to assess residents throughout the town or just neighbors of the lake, Olson said.

The inlet is a 210-acre wetland designed to filter sediment from the water that flows into the lake.

The inlet was dredged in 1992 during a 10-year restoration project. But it has collected so much sediment that it no longer acts as a filter. To again be effective, the inlet needs to be dredged, Don Holst of the Delavan Lake Improvement Association said previously.

Since the major lake restoration in the 1980s and 90s, the town has approved more maintenance work. Dredging the inlet would be the third of three projects planned so far. The other two projects, both started in 2006, are:

-- Removing 3,000 cubic yards of sediment from Brown’s Channel.

-- Improving the Mound Road sedimentation area, a 140-acre wetland that includes two man-made sedimentation ponds and a gauging station, where the U.S. Geological Survey conducts water testing.

The 4- to 5-foot-deep ponds were constructed in 1992 to slow the flow of water to the lake and filter sediment from the water. By 2002, the ponds were more than 40 percent filled with sediment and no longer functional. To renew the ponds, they needed to be dredged and deepened to 10 feet.