(Spirit Lake)– What is now an ecological disaster could soon become an economic disaster for the Iowa Great Lakes unless immediate action is taken to lower water levels. That was the message marina and resort operators had today (Fri.) at a meeting of the Dickinson County Emergency Management Commission. Among those delivering that was Rich Meyers of Fillenwarth Beach Resort…
“What I’m saying is you’re the Emergency Management Board, let’s manage it. Let’s move this water. Let’s get the supervisors in here, let’s get the road closed, and let’s start moving water downstream. Now if the corps says you’re gonna impact Spencer, why then that’s a different story.”
The commission voted unanimously in favor of holding a special joint session tomorrow (Sat.). Commission Chairman Bill Maas says breaching the road at the Lower Gar Outlet will be the major topic of discussion with possible action…
“We want to have our Emergency Management Commission here, we want to have the Board of Supervisors present, we want some representatives from the Corps of Engineers, and anybody else that can help us start solving this situation. We can sit and talk about things forever and come up with all sorts of good ideas which mean nothing unless we can put them into action, and I think that this is a move to move off of dead center and let’s get something done.”
This by far isn’t the first time talks about cutting out the road at the Lower Gar have been held…
“Since at least 1993 that’s kind of been in a lot of people’s minds that we were going to do something as soon as the water went down then and here we are 31 years later and we still haven’t done anything other than we did put in a couple bigger tubes at the bottom of the lake so the more water would drain out, but it’s becoming more and more evident every day that we need something that’s going to be a little more substantial.”
Plans to replace the culverts with a bridge have been drawn up but are snarled on the state level in the permitting process.
Tomorrow’s (Sat. 6/29) meeting is scheduled for 2:00 pm at the Dickinson County Courthouse. Officials with the city of Spencer and Clay county say they plan to be there.
