Final touches for lake on hold until warmer weather

Dredging is almost complete, but other improvements to McKinley Lake will likely wait for warmer weather.

Charles Ikenberry of Houston Engineering went over updates on the McKinley Lake dredging project with Creston City Council Tuesday, saying the recent cold weather was a boon after the warm holiday season.

“The last two, three weeks, as you know, have been very cold, and that has been very productive for us here,” Ikenberry said. “[In December] we had those zones, areas 1 through 4, kind of in the middle of the lake that were yet to be dredged, and I’m pleased to report that those areas have almost been entirely removed as of yesterday.”

While not yet sure on exact numbers, Ikenberry said somewhere between 300,000 and 305,000 cubic yards had been dredged from the lake. With the change order in November providing more funds for dredging, the budget allows for 306,000 CY.

“The next step for us is to get some more accurate information,” Ikenberry said. “We’ll probably use a drone equipped with lidar equipment to get a really high resolution elevation survey of the bottom of the lake to make sure that where we think we are from a quantity standpoint is really where they are.”

If dredging is complete, the contractors will move on to the shoreline, including stabilization and access improvements. However, other projects needed to complete the total plan will likely be put on hold.

“Pouring asphalt, if we’re going to do that, would be better done when it’s a little warmer anyway,” Ikenberry said. “We also have to install a floating dock that’s going to have a nice kayak launch on it. That’s also better done when the lake is near full. So the fish renovation and that dock kind of go hand in hand.”

Iowa DNR Fisheries Biologist Andy Jansen spoke more on the fish habitat and renovation, adding the best time for that would be late summer or early fall.

“The contractor’s going to put on a lot of good rock habitat, which is good for fish spawning. We still want to put in some cedar tree brush piles and some wood habitat for fish to have cover in certain times of the year, especially winter time,” Jansen said.

He said they also needed to clear the common carp out of the Hurley Creek Pond and McKinley Lake systems.

“We’ve done a lot of these fish renovations since the early 2000s, primarily in getting the common carp out of these systems. Common carp, with their feeding strategy, they resuspend sediments up in the water column, causing turbidity issues and rooting up a lot of the vegetation,” Jansen said. “We tend to see we’re more successful with those common carp renovations during that warmer time frame. We can get the lake down pretty low, there will only be a small pool left by the time that the contractor is done. There will be less area to treat, so those fish will really be concentrated.”

No action was taken by the council regarding this information.

In other council news…

The council held appointments with Tionna Pooler of Independent Public Advisors, LLC, to review the Sewer Fund Cash Flow Analysis and rate projection for wastewater treatment operations, and with Olivia Patton of Veenstra & Kimm for a project update on the wastewater nutrient reduction project. While there were no major updates, the appointments were held in order to inform recently elected city officials on the projects.

Creston Historic Preservation Commission Chair Jane Briley presented the commission’s annual report and shared possible future projects the city may be involved in. The commission plans to meet with the National Park Service and the state in June regarding making downtown Creston a historic district.

A public hearing regarding the three-year Creston Municipal Airport agricultural land lease will be held Feb. 17 at 6 p.m.

Dillon and Greg Bailey were awarded four eight-month leases for farmland owned by the city. While they had the highest bid for two of the properties, the other two were decided by the flip of the coin as bid amounts were equal.

The council approved $128,990 in Hotel-Motel Funding for fiscal year 2027. Organizations and projects funded include UCDA and Creston Chamber of Commerce, Restored Depot restoration, Southwest Iowa Hot Air Balloon Days and the Fourth of July celebration.