(Spirit Lake)– Restoration work continues at a popular public access area on the northeast side of Big Spirit Lake. Dusten Paulus, a wildlife technician with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says the Hales Slough project remains on schedule and that the area should be reopened shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday. In the meantime he says they’re still requesting people to stay out of the area…
“We’re just asking the public to please be patient and try to avoid foot traffic in that area for the next week and-a-half or so while we’re finishing up cutting and removing those trees and brush. We just want safety to be first. It can be difficult when you’re running large equipment or dropping a large cottonwood tree to always be mindful of everything that’s going on in and around, so we’re just asking folks to be patient and we’ll hopefully have that opened back up here right after Thanskgiving.”
As we reported previously, Paulus says the project is part of the extensive shoreline restoration project on Angler’s Bay. He says things in that area already look a lot different…
“When the road is opened back up, it’s going to look a little different. I know it already looks different to me. But I just want to remind folks that the goal of this whole project was to return that area to kind of a ecological health it needs to be for the native and near shore aquatic and terrestrial plants community and restore that oak savanna. And just a reminder, it’s about a mile long section of shoreline along Angler’s that we’re doing the project on, and the boat ramp portion is just a small portion of that. But it’s all going to be very beneficial to fish and wildlife habitat and improve water quality in Big Spirit Lake.”
Paulus says they appreciate everyone’s patience as the work continues.
