Anticipation for Summer lake fun is growing throughout the KVNF listening area. Scott Rist, Park Manager at Sweitzer Lake State Park, spoke with KVNF last week on the new spillway, south side upgrades and coming infrastructure projects at the popular lake near Delta.
"The spillway has been under construction for the last seven months. They're wrapping up at the end of this month and it'll be up and functioning after April 30th," said Rist.
The entire park will be open including the trail around the reservoir once the final inspection on the dam and spillway is completed. Rist said they are refilling the lake and anticipate it will be full by mid-June for motorized boating. Visitors can still come out to the park for a picnic or to do some fishing as well as access the newly redesigned South side of the lake.
"The park is open for day use right now, however, until the end of the month, we just ask you to stay off the dam area," said Rist.
Construction of the spillway built in 1957 was an absolute necessary, according to the park manager.
"With the high salt content in the water, it actually ate the rebar out of the concrete. When you tapped on a concrete, it's was silent hollow sound. The state said, 'you got to replace this spillway' as well," Rist said.
Over all the dam and spillway project ran about $3 million dollars and improved safety especially for folks downstream of the lake.
"If there was a thousand-year flooding area, it would now be able to handle it where the old spillway wasn't able to handle it. "
Currently there's no motorized boating until the lake can refill. Rist said they had to bring the lake down nine feet for construction work which ultimately included needed repairs on the boat ramp near the front entrance.
"We actually extended it four feet and got rid of some objects where people are damaging their boat on. And then the 70-year-old building that was right next to the boat ramp, we tore it down and re-landscaped it because it was collapsing in on itself. And then we also armored the shoreline right in the area to help stop some erosion," said the park manager.
The goal is have the boat ramp open in June. But, in the meantime, visitors can check out the South side of the park where new picnic shelters, grass, and new vault toilets are now open to the public.
" We put in seven brand new shelters, brought in almost a half acre of nice green grass and constructed a ramp area to be able to launch your paddleboard in. So about $1.2 million worth of improvements to the area and just another area for people to come out and recreate down the park."
And they're not finished. There's more to happen.
"So start July 1st we're going into the construction design phase of the future development and after that we'll actually start work on the ground. It's not going to be pretty stuff. It's going to be the underground utilities, stuff that people won't see, but it's the important stuff. The, the water, electricity, sewer, that all needs to be in the ground before we can start building the surface areas. And the goal is with this money is to be able to build one full campground, so about twenty-five sites, and then we have money slated to keep building for the next ten years," Rist said.
Visitors won't need to worry that the upcoming infrastructure work will dampen their fun on the lake.
"It won't have any effect. It's scheduled most likely not to start until late November at the earliest. We still have to design it. And then go out to contract bid. And even if it was to start earlier, it's outside the main park right now. It's in the area that we're going to develop that users can't go into anyways."
With the newest upgrades and construction at the lake, Rist is anticipating larger crowds and more use this Summer.
"Where we would have 400 people on two acres of grass we can now spread them out to another area and decongest areas to give that visitor feel, you know, make their experience better so it doesn't feel quite as compact," he said.
And with the upgrades to the north side trail, Rist says that will give even more room to roam.
"It's approximately just shy of three miles if you go all the way around. You can park at the visitor center and go all the way around either direction. This winter we put some road base down on the north side of the trail that used to get kind of muddy and now with that it's stays dry and so it's, it's usable year round now."
With the Summer season quickly approaching Rist said, " I just want to throw out some water safety recommendations with our gorgeous spring days where even it's hitting eighty degrees out. If people are just starting to decide to go paddle boarding, kayaking, that's great. We want you to use the water, but we want you to be safe and make sure you're wearing your life jackets this time of year. In fifty degree water hypothermia kicks in about twelve minutes which is really quick. And we don't want to have to do a recovery , so we highly recommend wearing those life jackets."
