Darling Restoration Home

Meeting June 12, 2008

Faye opened meeting at 6:00 pm. and handed out the agenda.
Faye read from the excerpt of the section 26 of House File 2782 which defines ‘meetings with local leaders and stakeholders’ which Rachel had provided per the request of the Council.
Goals and priorities are being separated into two appropriate lists—those which can be funded by the ‘in-lake’ work and those which are gong to the ‘parking lot’ which is a euphemism for work that we must deal with outside of the in-lake work. Although, these items can’t be addressed by the ‘in-lake’ funds, the parking lot consists of work which the Council does not want to lose sight of as the items on that list will be central to the overall quality of the entire lake.

Faye asked each member to present or state goals/objectives for the project.

Bud & Elaine Pitt:

1. Water Quality
2. Sediment removal/dredging
3. Bacteria reduction
4. Stabilize shoreline and reduce soil erosion

Lee Schafer:

1. Continue water quality work. Additional ponds and terraces with top goal of podding the water runoff from the Rubio road to the arm running past the campground.
2. Dredging of the soil/sediment from the lake. Dredge at least 45-foot wide path back to old campground. Design new spillway so that it would be easy to add additional 20 inches of height (depth to the lake water) in the next 5 years. During that time work with the Iowa DOT to increase the bridge length by 200 on highway 78 and if needed, build a berm on south side of highway to protect roadway.
3. Continue work to reduce bacteria.
4. Access the dam by auto from the south and provide parking for auto and rescue as it was in the 50s and 60s.
5. Provide handicap fishing access.

Jim Gevock:

1. Achieve and sustain water quality levels that support all recreation,/li>
   • Maintain bacteria levels to allow swimming anytime
   • Maintain clear water (secchi depth of 4.5’)
   • Enhance fish habitat
2. Capitalize on in-park upland impoundment to enhance variety of park/lake habitat and enhance lake/park educational value
   • Trails
3. Acknowledge lake/park restoration energy use and add renewable energy production demonstration to the Natural Resource showplace that is Lake Darling.

Mark Cobb:

• Use Bio-diesel fuels for the dredging of the lake

Charles had other items as well which went to the Parking lot so I did not include them in this list.

Bud Pitt added that he thought we should just focus upon the ‘in-lake restoration’ and be very specific about the goals.

Steve Waters: Steve answered questions raised as a result of earlier discussions.

1. On the matter of Wind Energy, he needs to provide more details describing how the use of wind power would be used in the in-lake restoration.
• Faye and Jim G. are going to compose a letter to send off to George Antoniou, DNR with the details of how wind power could be used. They will bring the letter to the next meeting and the Council will decide how to proceed from there.
• If a positive answer by the Council is not received, we will place ‘wind power’ in the parking lot for discussion at the appropriate time.
2. Steve will check on using Bio-diesel in the project.
3. The handicap access issue will be the Fisheries responsibilities. There are monies available to do this.
4. The idea of raising the level of the lake 2’ initiated an animated discussion. Steve stated that raising the water level would be one of the quickest and most sustainable ways to gain water clarity. The ideal depth of the lake is 10’ and we don’t reach that level presently. This idea will warrant further discussion as it may have implications for the beach area,boat rental and so on.

Agenda items for July 8th meeting will include:

• Trying to solidify our goals as we have been discussing
• Wind-Power write up
• Refine our feedback

Next meeting July 8th at the Lake Darling Lodge

Respectfully submitted,
Harold R. Frakes