People who live on lake didn’t create it

In Orlan Love's Feb. 8 article on Lake Macbride, Rep. Mary Mascher, House District 77, was quoted as saying “the people who live there created the lake, and the state took it over later.”

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website history of Lake Macbride: “An effort to establish the wooded valleys of Mill and Jordan creeks as a state park was initiated by the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce and J.N. ‘Ding' Darling, a noted Iowa conservationist. To raise funds to purchase additional land for the park, lots were sold in the area. In June 1937 the park opened to the public. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) constructed a number of facilities at Lake Macbride in the 1930s including the beautiful stone shelter and beach building.” Nowhere does it indicate the people that live on the lake “created” Lake Macbride.

Previous bills have failed because of special interests groups that want to have their own private lake. Recently,

$2 million of public funds were used to improve fish habitat and protect shore line damage. If Senate File 54 would pass, it would make Lake Macbride accessible to all and in line with regulations of all other no-wake lakes in Iowa.

If this bill is not passed, I'd like the public to buy me a private lake, too.

Michael Russell

Iowa City