Winning bid announced on shower and bathroom facility at Mormon Trail

Adair County Conservation Director Dominic Johnson reports Caliber Concrete of Adair was the winning bidder for a new shower and bathroom facility that is to be installed next to the north campground at Mormon Trail County Park east of Bridgewater.

The bid was awarded to Caliber in a special meeting of the conservation board March 29 and it is contingent on them signing a contract. The amount of the project is to be $217,316, Johnson said, which doesn’t include a new water meter Southern Iowa Rural Water Authority will need to install on the building.

The building is being constructed off-site in Wisconsin and will be trucked in and installed here, but there is plenty of work on the site that will need to be performed before the building is expected to arrive in June.

Johnson said Caliber Concrete will serve as the general contractor and they will sub-contract virtually all of the work out to other contractors.

“They’ve done a lot of the work on these buildings in the area and they’re a great asset to have,” Johnson said. “They’ve worked with this company [that is building our building] before, so we’re excited to work with them and it should be a pretty smooth process.”

In other conservation news, Johnson reported:

• Camping rates will be $20 per night at Lake Orient and $8 per night for tent sites and $12 for electric sites at Mormon Trail. After the new shower and bathroom facility is completed, Mormon Trail prices will go to $15 for tent sites and $20 for electric sites. The rate increase at Lake Orient takes into account water and electric enhancements that were made there last year.

• The conservation board was able to hire an AmeriCorps worker for this summer. The AmeriCorps worker is an employee of AmeriCorps but will be paid by Adair County for their work. Their main focus will be providing educational conservation programming similar to what was held last summer.

• The Jensen-Butler Wildlife Area is officially Adair County’s. Johnson reported to the board that in February, purchase of that wildlife area, located near the corner of 200th Street and Trenton Avenue southwest of Stuart, was completed.

• A new information kiosk is being worked on for Lake Orient. Materials have been obtained to build the kiosk and workers have been building it indoors on days with inclement weather. Johnson hoped it would be finished by the end of last week or the beginning of this week.

• After work has been completed on the matter in the last year, there are no more diseased or dying Ash trees in mowed areas the county conservation department maintains. Cedar trees were cut down and drug away near the shoreline at Mormon Trail County Park lately. The work is expected to enhance fishing opportunities at the park.