A draining experience
Lengthy dredging will leave park pond healthier, deeper
The lake that gives Texarkana, Texas’ central park its name soon will be deeper, cleaner and healthier thanks to a long-needed dredging, city officials say.
A local contractor has removed most of the water from Spring Lake Park’s 5-acre namesake and is preparing to remove tons of silt from its now-exposed bed.
If all goes as planned, the project will increase the lake’s
depth from about 3 feet to 10 feet, extending its life and improving it as a habitat for wildlife and aquatic plants. Crews will also reinforce the shoreline with stonework and install a flagstone border around the lake’s edge.
The lake has never been dredged, Parks and Recreation Department director Robby Robertson said. Though city workers have done some limited excavation around its edges, the department has exhausted what it can do on its own.
“It was just a Band-Aid, not what was really needed, which is the entire lake being done,” Robertson said. “This has been on our wish list for 10 years plus.”
Texarkana’s Tatum Excavating Co. made the winning bid for the project, expected to cost about $875,000. It is being funded through the city’s Capital Improvement Plan, a prioritized long-term schedule of infrastructure development projects to be paid for by municipal bonds.
Robertson said deepening the lake will make it healthier for plant life, aquatic life and wildlife, especially by preventing unwanted plant growth that can choke the lake’s ecosystem.
“When you have a low-depth lake like that, the sun hits the
bottom, it creates things that grow that are not always good for fish. It takes out the oxygen of the lake,” he said.
To comply with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department regulations, all the lake’s fish had to be collected, identified, measured and recorded prior to its water being pumped out. A subcontractor placed the living fish in aerated tanks and transported them to be released into a similar habitat.
Relocating the fish had as much to do with considering them property as with saving their lives.
“The state has been stocking Spring Lake Park since the ’70s, so those fish were basically considered assets of the state. That’s why we had to go through a state permitting process,” TEC vice president Ross Sarine said.
Other species who make the lake home, such as the geese familiar to park visitors, are being left alone in accordance with TPWD advice, Robertson said. The parks department has relocated some ducks, including some that were injured but for the most part is sticking with a hands-off approach despite some citizens expressing concern for the animals’ welfare.
“The fact of the matter is ducks and geese are wildlife, and we have done what we could to remove the ones we were able to. But Texas Parks and Wildlife comes in and says, ‘They will find another place to go. They will be able to find their way to other sources.’ As far as the geese go, we were told we were not able to touch the geese at all; let them migrate where they want to,” Robertson said.
The next step is to allow the lakebed to dry, which is why the project is taking place in the summer despite potential inconvenience for visitors during the park’s peak season.
“If we wait until even the fall, it starts raining, and it gets to the point where you can’t even get equipment on the edge, let alone inside the lake. We can’t do it during rainy seasons. We can’t do it in cold seasons or when the weather is even starting to cool down because you’re not going to get that drying time. We need dry, hot, sunny weather,” Robertson said.
TEC will use excavators and dozers to remove the lakebed’s silt, creating a bowl shape that slopes from the shore down to a maximum depth of about 10 feet. Crews will load the silt into trucks and dump it into one of the company’s waste pits.
Once the dredging is completed, TEC will use wire baskets filled with stone, known as gabion baskets, to reinforce the shoreline. A flagstone border around the lake’s edge is expected to improve its appearance and approachability.
“The gabion will protect the shoreline, keep it from eroding and give it a clean edge, and then the flagstone will provide a nice border all the way around,” Sarine said.
The natural spring that feeds the lake eventually will refill it. During the excavation, further pumping and channeling the spring water will keep it out of workers’ way.
Visitors can expect the walking trail around the lake at times to be blocked, Sarine said. As the project progresses, truck traffic around the site will increase. He estimated the whole job will take three to four months although a timeline is difficult to guess because of the project’s uniqueness.
The site’s safety became a concern in recent days because people have been walking across the lakebed using metal detectors to search for artifacts and valuables. The city used social media on Thursday to caution them against it.
“While we understand the desire to possibly find some long lost treasures, there are safety concerns—maybe even the possibility of sink holes. We are asking people to stay on the bank area if you are there,” City Hall posted on Facebook. “No trespassing” signs have since been posted, and police are patrolling the park more often to keep people out of the empty lake.
Sarine echoed the city’s concerns.
“I would advise people to stay out. There’s a lot of curiosity, I think, based on years of stories, but we’re not aware of any items there. There’s going to be heavy equipment and trucks coming in and out. There could be open excavations at the end of the day. It’s really probably best that people abstain from being in the work area,” he said.
Robertson said he can understand the public’s various responses to the dredging project but wants them to understand its necessity.
“It’s a really strange thing for people to see that lake without any water in it. But for the health of the lake and the health of the park as a whole, this needed to be done to keep the lake going for another hundred years,” he said.
On Twitter: @RealKarlRichter