LAKE MAINTENANCE MILLAGE PASSES

Tim Wolff compares the maintenance of Lake Isabella to painting the Mackinac Bridge.

It’s constant; by the time one side is painted, the other is in need.

After voters in the village approved a 3-mill levy for lake and river restoration on Tuesday, Wolff is making plans for the future.

Voters approved the millage 464-202, giving village officials the green light to conduct the necessary testing to get the permits to begin dredging muck from the river and lake bottom.

Some of the testing has already been completed on the Chippewa River but the state requires two samples from testing sites, Wolff said, noting that getting the samples

tested and the state reviewing the samples is a bit time consuming.

However, Wolff said, maintenance is something that must be done continually, and what is planned now is much larger in comparison than a dredging that was completed in the 1990s.

“This is a transformative moment for us,” Wolff said, adding that even at 3 mills, property taxes are generally lower in Lake Isabella than other areas in the county.

Lake Isabella’s operating millage is capped at one mill, Wolff said.

Maintenance is important to keep a lake healthy, and the last large-scale dredging removed about 10,000 cubic yards of muck.

Light and heavy sediment continually gets into the man-made lake and keeping it healthy through maintenance is key, Wolff

said.

Once the village gets the OK to dredge, high priority areas are the river and boat launches.

Voters approving the restoration millage came after an earlier attempt in November to get voters to approve a parks and recreation proposal that also included lake restoration; it failed by 34 votes.

Community leaders — Lake Isabella has a village council and the private Lake Isabella Property Owners Association — worked together after the proposal failed to come up with a plan to restore the lake and river that voters would find more palatable.

Building from past ballot proposal efforts, the village council and LIPOA started refining the previous dredging plan with more detailed cost estimates and a tentative schedule of what areas on the lake bottom will be addressed.

SUE KNICKERBOCKER FIELD — THE MORNING SUN Lake Isabella voters on Tuesday approved a millage for lake and river restoration. The Chippewa River at Riviera Park on Carmen Drive is full of muck that will be dredged following the millage vote.