Lake BV trail remains closed

BENTONVILLE — Thousands of trail users will have to avoid Bella Vista Lake for the next few weeks as city crews continue to remove debris and repair damage from the April flooding.

Large tree limbs littered the parking lot at the veterans memorial on the lake’s northeast corner this week. Chain-link fences with signs reading “park closed” stood at each end of the dam separating the parking lots from a section of the trail along the top of the earthen dam on the lake’s north side.

Another fence blocks the trail’s south entrance.

The dam needs repair, but there are also trail sections where water “undercut everything beneath” the trail on the east side of the bridge that’s on the south side of the lake, said David Wright, Parks and Recreation director.

The trail won’t open until repairs have been made on the dam, said Mayor Bob McCaslin.

“We’re not taking out the dam. We’re not building a new dam,” he said, adding the repair is needed to make the structure safe before trail users cross it.

The dam’s future has been embroiled in a lawsuit as a group — Friends of Little Sugar Creek — fight to stop the city from replacing it. The group advocates for the dam to be removed. The lawsuit was dismissed after construction permits and a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant expired.

Travis Matlock, city engineer, said the city filed for an extension May 23 for the $2.7 million FEMA grant, but it’s unclear the direction the city will take.

The dam was topped by flooding in 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2015. The gates were removed after the 2015 flooding.

City officials are working to see what their long-term options are for the dam, they said.

“There is still no decision,” Matlock said.