City wants to raise level in Echo Lake
By Ed Nadolski
Editor in Chief
With gusty winds out of the northwest Tuesday, many Burlington residents learned why city officials are motivated to raise the level of water in Echo Lake as soon as possible.
All motorists and pedestrians had to do was take a tiny sniff as they passed by the lake to appreciate the adverse impact of the lake’s drawdown – an unpleasant swampy smell.
“We can’t have that,” City Administrator Carina Walters said.
Walters was scrambling Tuesday to come up with a Plan B to address this issue in light of the mandate the city has to repair the dam.
Walters said she will discuss the problem with the Department of Natural Resources and the city’s consulting engineer to determine how much the water level can be raised while the repairs are completed.
Ideally, she said, such a level would be enough to eliminate the stench created when the lake’s shallow spots are exposed.
The DNR ordered a drawdown of the lake and inspection of the dam in the wake of the mid-July flood that overwhelmed the dam and the banks of the lake.
The city received the final report on the dam from Ayres and Associates on Tuesday morning, Walters said. The report identified several areas that need to be addressed.
Among them are repair of cracked and chipped concrete along the dam’s spillway and repairs to areas on the north side of the dam that adjoin Echo Park.
The city is also under a DNR mandate to create a debris-catching system that will prevent logs and other materials from becoming stuck in the dam’s gate, Walters said.
That mandate was in place prior to the flood and the city had been in contact with a designer and contractor who will create the log-catching barrier.
That work has to be completed prior to Nov. 1, Walters said.
“I want to be able to fill the lake as much as we can under these circumstances,” she said.
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