Sediment testing of Cedar Lake nears completion

CEDAR RAPIDS - When they planned it, the temperature in Cedar Rapids was forecast at 50 degrees. Instead, an Iowa Department of Natural Resources crew braved a 20-degree day and wind to float a boat across the 115-acre Cedar Lake on Thursday.

A bundled Daniel Cook, a physicist, and Greg Fuhrmann, a geologist, navigated to a dozen predetermined coordinates on the interior of the lake, anchoring and then twisting a soil auger 2 feet into the lake bottom to draw sediment samples.

This is the final sampling step in the 'phase two” site assessment, which began in December and should conclude in four to eight weeks after analysis and drafting a report.

'The city wants to take over the property, but they don't want to take over an environmental mess,” Cook said.

Key partners considering major lake restoration project, possibly into a destination for fishing, kayaking, and a leisurely stroll, are progressing on different fronts, including the study and fundraising. The sediment study is critical to an acquisition deal between the city of Cedar Rapids and Alliant Energy, which once used the lake as a cooling pond for the since-demolished Sixth Street NE power plant.

The study should determine if the lake is clean enough for the city to assume ownership and if mitigation work is needed.

'Once you get a phase two, it tells you the what. It doesn't tell you how to clean it up, and it doesn't tell you what your end use is going to be and who's doing the cleanup,” said Jennifer Pratt, Cedar Rapids community development director. 'The important thing is we (the city and Alliant) are both at the table and ready to have the discussion.”

Fundraising

Fundraising will hinge on the lake being in public hands.

Friends of Cedar Lake, the advocacy group pushing for restoration, has introduced two well-known local leaders to lead a fundraising campaign: Lee Clancey, mayor of Cedar Rapids from 1996 to 2002, and Mike McGrath, of the McGrath Auto Group.

'This is a continuation of so many things we've been working on for years,” said Clancey, who was an early adopter of a vision to revitalize the Sinclair meatpacking plant site. 'It's all coming to a head now, but it's really taken a long time.”

Trail connections

Cedar Lake is being partnered with a planned pedestrian bridge project called The Sleeping Giant, a cable-stayed bridge connecting the old Sinclair site across the Cedar River to the Mount Trashmore site, which is also to be transformed.

The effort is called Connect CR because the bridge and lake are two ends of a local recreational barbell connected by the Fourth Street SE trail. More broadly, it will tie into two eventual longer trails - the Iowa City to Cedar Falls bike trail and the cross-country American Discovery Trail.

Friends of Cedar Lake are projecting a five-year timetable to complete the Cedar Lake restoration and Sleeping Giant, which will cost well over $10 million.

'This would connect us to the rest of the state and the rest of the country,” Clancey said. 'These are big vision kinds of things.”

The two projects also could benefit from Cedar Rapids' plans for flood protection, which will affect both areas, which the Connect CR group said is why they are getting active now.

Two samples

Back at Cedar Lake on Thursday, Cook and Fuhrmann emptied sediment samples into a bucket, mixed them with water for a homogenized consistency and sealed them in jars with labels corresponding to the location. Each location will have two sample jars, one to test for Resource Recovery and Conservation Act metals, such as mercury, and a second to test for man-made chemicals, such as pesticide chlordane, polychlorinated biphenyl or PCBs, and semi-volatile organic compounds.

Water quality studies have suggested the lake is getting cleaner over time, although Cook said this is the first sediment study since one in the early 1990s.

The questions will be the extent of toxins remaining in the lake sediment after years as a cooling pond, taking runoff from nearby businesses, including chromium and trichloroethylene or TCE that turned part of the lake yellow, and serve as the collection pool for thousands of acres of the city, Iowa DNR's Cook said.

Dredging

Since a damning study in the early 1990s revealed high levels of toxins, the lake has filled in with silt, reducing the depth from about 7 feet deep to about 4 feet, he said. So, do they need to probe deeper to get an accurate picture, particularly if dredging is requested, he said.

Dredging could be a key issue ahead. Members of the City Council asked questions about dredging at a meeting of the Development Committee last month.

Bill Micheel, assistant director of community development, responded a clean bill of health from the study should signal whether dredging is possible but not necessarily whether it is affordable or practical. He added that if dredging is to be considered, the city would need to manage the flow of sediment into the lake either where McLoud Run enters or at drainage points upstream to avoid constant maintenance costs.

Friends of Cedar Lake President Dale Todd has advocated for dredging to enhance the long-term use of the lake.

'To not increase the depth of the lake basically means you are kicking the can down the road for the next generation,” Todd said. 'It's long overdue.”

l Comments: (319) 339-3177; brian.morelli@thegazette.com