County looks at problems at West Boggs Lake

Jul. 11—One of Daviess County's treasures is in need of some help. West Boggs Lake is the centerpiece of a lot of the recreational tourism and services in the county, helping to provide around $10 million to the local travel economy, but the 622-acre lake is facing some real problems.

"We have a heavily farmed watershed around the lake of 8,300 acres that drain into West Boggs," said West Boggs Park Superintendent Nathan Rihm. "When the rain comes down on those fields, they send down a lot of sediment and nutrients into the lake."

"It's been a continuous issue ever since there has been a lake," said President of the Daviess County Commissioner Nathan Gabhart. "It is a wonderful amenity for the community but with the run-off from the agriculture it is an issue we have been dealing with for awhile."

Rihm told the Daviess County Commissioners that there was a recent study done on the water in the lake and the results show some very high levels of phosphorous as a result of agricultural fertilizers and manure run-off.

"There are 24,000 pounds of phosphorous in the lake and another 240,000 pounds of legacy phosphorous that is tied up in the sediment," said Rihm. "The algae will feed on that phosphorous and cause blooms that hurt the water quality to the point where we have to close the lake. Right now, the lake quality is very poor. The phosphorous is about 13 times what it should be."

Officials say they are taking steps to try and limit the problem starting with treatment. The problem is that the park can only afford to cover about one-sixth of the lake.

"We can only afford to treat about 100 acres of the lake," said Rihm. "Our latest tests put the levels low enough that lake is still safe for swimming. That may be because of the limited rain and cooler summer so far. I expect that to change I feel like we have a bloom coming. It just is not here yet."

Rihm says a three-tiered approach is underway to try and deal with the problems coming out of the watershed.

"We have put together a water quality committee," he said. "We knew we needed a lot of representatives from the farmers. We also sought out some Amish representation. We are beginning to see some changes from the farms. People are planting grass along their ditches and are pulling their cattle away from the streams."

Dealing with the sediment heading into the lake is another problem. There are two small retention basins that catch sediment heading to the lake and both are nearly full.

"The smallest one is nearly full and the largest, which covers 17.5-acres, is completely full," said Rihm. "There are some small streams that come into that basin and they don't even stop."

The only way to fix that is to dredge out the small lakes.

"We have a sediment removal study underway," said Rihm. "That is part of our total approach of education, dredging the basins, and treating the lake. The dredging will cost several million dollars and the treatment of the lake will probably run around $10-million."

Finding the money to take care of those issues may be difficult. Rihm says there is a long-term plan.

"We are looking at forming a conservancy district," he said. "This is nothing new. It would allow for a small tax on the watershed that would allow for long term maintenance on the basins."

"That is someplace where perhaps the county can help," said Gabhart. "We could help set up a conservancy district. We also have zoning and if there is a need for a grass strip next to a waterway or ditches we can look at what we have in our arsenal."

Currently, the park has a lake preservation fund that comes from some of the cost for camping at West Boggs but that only generates around $24,000 per year.

"Our board is discussing reaching out to congress to see if we can get some funding to fix these problems," said Rihm.

The commissioners spent a considerable amount of time once again working on the plans for the courthouse renovation.

The plans for the courthouse project are now 50% complete and the expectation is that the documents will be ready to go out for bids around Labor Day.

"It's been a very thorough process, but it is now time to move on," said Gabhart. "We gave a ton of latitude to the department heads."

The commissioners directed the county highway superintendent to move forward on a proposed salt barn project.

"We are definitely moving forward on kind of a multi-purposed building at the highway department site," said Gabhart. "We are at least going to see how the bids come in.

Meanwhile, the county is going to be getting appraisals to perhaps sell the old salt-sand building on West Walnut Street. The county will hold onto the old highway garage on Third Street, at least until the courthouse construction project is done.

In other business the board heard a report from Samaritan Center on the transition of their facilities to the Family Health Center.

The commissioners approved a $49,000 contract for the section corner perpetuation.

They agreed to sign a letter of support for a fire training center behind Washington Township Fire Department station 2.

The commissioners accepted the resignation of Natalie Smith from the Westgate Board and replaced her with Darin Holder and they also voted to reappoint Deron Steiner and Tony Showalter to the Daviess Community Hospital Board.