(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously today (Tues.) to adopt a resolution supporting a study into sediment that’s getting into Lower Gar and Milford Creek. Both waterbodies are included on a list of impaired waterways due in large part to that very factor. Milford Mayor Steve Anderson told the supervisors part of the goal is to get them removed from that list by addressing the sediment issue, which he says will eventually spill over into other lakes in the Iowa Great Lakes chain if it isn’t addressed…
“The sediment is no longer coming from the watershed is what we think. It’s coming from the lakes. Eventually Lower Gar will have its sediment load filled, and then it will go to Minnewashta, and then it’s going to go to Upper Gar and then it’s going to go to East Lake Okoboji. So at what point are we going to stop and address the issue? Are we just going to let everything silt up? That doesn’t seem like a viable option. If we stop it now and address the issue, try to figure out what it is before it gets to the rest of the chain of lakes. We’ll protect the economy, we’ll protect that water quality, we’ll protect the ecology of those lakes and that’s what this is doing, the focus is. This is not going to end. This sedimentation is not going to end unless we do something about it.”
Anderson says the study would also involve that part of the watershed that’s in Minnesota.
Bill Maas, Mayor of Orleans and President of the East Okoboji Lakes Improvement Corporation, said that while a lot has been done in recent years to improve water quality in the Iowa Great Lakes, problems continue…
“I’m President of the East Okoboji Lakes Improvement Corporation and yet I can look back on East Lake and I can find you five or six places that are grossly abusing putting water in, drainage water, into the lake. All you have to do is put a drone up and start taking pictures on a calm day and you can see everyone of them. And, you know, that’s been going on for years. But we need something to start getting everybody together and I whole heartedly support having what Steve is saying about how we all need to get together, all of the governmental entities and all of the protective associations and then start screaming loud enough to try to get some of these problems solved or atleast start working on them a little more.”
The draft resolution will now go to other cities in the lakes corridor for their consideration before being finalized. There is no financial obligations among the entities at this point.
Discussion of a 50-year agreement of the Lower Gar Outlet was also on the agenda. It will be the topic of further consideration at an upcoming joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and Milford City Council. Supervisor Tim Fairchild said he wants the two governing bodies to come up with an emergency plan should high water levels become an issue again this spring and summer on the Iowa Great Lakes. A date for that meeting hasn’t been set yet.
