Pleasant Creek Lake near Palo getting $3.5 million makeover

PALO - The $3.5 million restoration of Linn County's largest and most popular lake, scheduled to be completed next year, will continue until February 2017, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has announced.

Pleasant Creek Lake will remain in a substantially lowered condition throughout the extended construction period, said DNR fisheries biologist Paul Sleeper, who is coordinating the rehabilitation of the 410-acre lake near Palo.

'We got off to a late start, which has delayed other phases of the project,” Sleeper said.

Several factors delayed the drawdown, which is required to permit access for the heavy equipment that will reshape, deepen and protect much of the lake's shoreline, he said.

Securing control from the Duane Arnold Energy Center of the valves that regulate the lake's level took longer than expected, and then the little-used valves would not open and had to be replaced, Sleeper said. The delayed drawdown, in turn, delayed an archaeological review that was required to secure a necessary permit, he said.

Though the lake has now been drawn down 15 feet to the required level, work that was to have started Dec. 1 has been pushed back into April, he said.

The lake's two main boat ramps will be replaced next summer, with the shoreline work to be accomplished next fall, he said.

Sleeper said the lake will remain open to visitors but with some limitations.

The beach, shoreline angling jetties and the main boat ramps are largely beyond lake level.

Since the existing boat ramps no longer reach the lake, the DNR will construct makeshift ramps to allow some boat access, he said.

Sleeper said the project, funded primarily by the state's Lake Restoration Program, will stem shoreline erosion, improve water quality and create better habitat for fish and more spots where anglers can connect with them.

Five miles of shoreline will be armored with rock, and an estimated 40,000 cubic yards of lake bed material will be rearranged to create more diversity in depth and bottom content.

Sleeper said both water quality and fishing generally have been above average since the lake was constructed in the late 1970s, primarily because of a watershed that is only four times larger than the surface of the lake.

Sleeper said that same 4-to-1 ratio will likely keep the lake level from rising much during the construction period.

It remains to be seen how the lower lake level will affect ice fishing this winter, according to Sleeper.

While the panfish and game fish will be concentrated in the remaining deeper water in the main basin, so will the smaller fish they prey on, he said.

'Even though anglers will know where to find them, they may not be able to get them to bite,” he said.

Following a similar project completed in 2002 at Lake Macbride, water quality, fish habitat, lake access and angler success all greatly improved.