(Ruthven)– The Iowa Department of Natural Resources will hold a come and go event this Thursday evening to talk about the restoration of Trumbull Lake. Rob Patterson, a Wildlife Biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says that lake was restored as recently as 2012, but he says conditions have deteriorated once again…
“We de-watered the system for a couple of years and removed rough fish, allowed a lot of emergent vegetation to take hold in the lake and then also re-stocked the fisheries, and that all worked out pretty well and we got really positive results from that for a number of years. Over the last several years we’ve kind of seen that lake go the other direction where the habitat has degraded, the fisheries kind of diminished and our water quality has suffered. So we kind of looked at it as an opportune time where habitat conditions aren’t great, the fishery is poor and we also, the thing that goes along with Trumbull Lake is that we’re in kind of a dry spring so with a lake like Trumbull we have to be somewhat opportunistic. So the stars seemed to be kind of aligning and we feel it’s kind of a good time to be managing water levels out there again.”
Paterson says plans call for the draw down of Trumbull Lake to start this summer, with the lake being re-stocked with fish once it refills in 2023.
Thursday’s informational open house will be held from 6:00 until 8:00 pm at the Lost Island Nature Center near Ruthven.
