DNR To Hold Public Informational Meeting On Lake Restoration Project In Emmet County
DNR To Hold Public Informational Meeting On Lake Restoration Project In Emmet County
March 07, 2022Steve Schwaller
(Estherville)– A come-and-go open house presentation meeting will be held later this week regarding a water quality restoration project on West Swan Lake in Emmet county. Mike Hawkins, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, tells KUOO news the roughly 1,000 acre shallow lake has been suffering in recent years. He says they’re proposing a multi-pronged approach to bring it back…
“We’ll be doing a temporary partial draw down, water level draw down is what’s proposed. And when we do that we’re able to re-set the fishery and get rid of some of those problem species like common carp and allow some of the aquatic plants around the edge of the lake to germinate and get going, things like bulrush and cattail. That particular lake has some pretty neat stands of giant bulrush, hard stem bulrush, that would really benefit from this draw down. Those types of plants really do benefit from dry water periods. And so that would take place over about a year to a year and-a-half and we would re-stock the fishery when water levels return and get it back on track.”
He adds the installation of a carp barrier downstream from Ingham Lake would also be part of the project. Hawkins says a public informational meeting regarding the project will be held at 6:00 pm Thursday (March 10th) at the SERT Building at Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville…
“And we’ll be starting work shortly after that. So we’ll get some input and some help from the public and we would like to put a contract out after that public meeting and get going on the project so some major work components may be able to take place this coming season, but we anticipate a lot of that work and some of the changes would be next fall through next winter and then hopefully bring the lake back on line the following year, but if Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate we may be forced to do an additional year there. So over the next couple of years we’re going to see some big changes there.”
Hawkins says an informational video on what’s being proposed for West Swan Lake can also be found on the DNR’s YouTube page.
