Gardner Lake deserves attention now. The needs for dredging, spillway repair, and dam maintenance are common among reservoirs built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, including Gardner Lake. A scheduled discussion was postponed due to the coronavirus, but it's a concern that has been under discussion for more than a decade.
“There is no shortage of talk, and maybe that is precisely what is called for right now,” said Scott W. Campbell, of the Kansas Biological Survey, a non-regulatory research and public service agency of the State of Kansas. “There is considerable value in having focused public discussions since this critical issue won’t be going away, and finding real solutions will partly revolve around increasing public awareness and helping people to appreciate the necessity of investing in management if we hope to preserve our lakes.”
The lake has been a significant aspect of public infrastructure since its creation eighty years ago. For thousands of years, the tall prairie grasses had held soil in place, but farming and overgrazing loosened the green golden weave. Land stripped to hardpan became impossible to farm, and still there came no rains. Thick dust swirled into black whirlwinds, clouding the sunlight. Into this dreary landscape walked the Works Progress Administration, full of new ideas, promises, and plans for 169 new Kansas reservoirs, places for recreation in times of stress, sources of irrigation, a way to store the water that came to the parched fields.
Gardner Lake, built from 1934 to 1939, started in the Depression as a dream of better times to come. More than 200 men put their backs and their faith into creating this reservoir of hope. They built twelve barracks and a kitchen, plus a beach house that stands to this day. They completed the dam, under the direction of E.F. Alexander and two other businessmen, for a cost of $400,000 in 1939. Those men built that dam to last. The lake remains a place of refuge for wildlife and people alike. One channel catfish caught in Gardner Lake weighed 29 pounds, a record that stayed strong as the best in the state of Kansas for 25 years.
Lucas Kowalewski, of Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism, stated that the lake holds channel catfish, flathead catfish, largemouth bass, saugeye, crappie, and gizzard shad. The state leases the lake for $8,325 annually so that non-residents can enjoy fishing and boating rights on Gardner Lake. The fish feeding program provides two pounds of fish food per acre each year.
Before European settlement Kansas had fewer than a dozen natural lakes, as Kansas does not have the geology or soil types necessary for sustaining natural lakes over time without human intervention, said Campbell, of the Biological Survey. Using U.S. Geological Survey data, Survey scientists estimate there are now more than 150,000 artificially constructed reservoirs of all sizes in Kansas. A reservoir is an artificial lake where water is stored, and the dam controls the amount of water that flows out of the reservoir. A spillway is a hydraulic structure built at a dam site to divert surplus water after a reservoir fills to maximum capacity.
Most Kansas lakes are owned privately, others are owned by the state or local communities, and still others by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the federal government. Gardner Lake has become the responsibility of the City of Gardner, which owns the lake water and lake bed. There is no written maintenance and operation plan, city staff asserted.
Dam and Spillway
The average life span of a small reservoir dam in this region of the U.S. is frequently estimated at roughly 70 to 100 years, and maintenance figures into its expected longevity. The dam at Gardner Lake has been classified as a high hazard dam as of 2018. The National Inventory of Dams bases classification on the extent of damage a failure would cause downstream, with high-hazard potential dams resulting in loss of life and significant economic losses.
In 2010, the dam looked good, said a safety inspection report by Terracon Consultants, but the spillway showed deterioration, including signs of cracking, scaling, and spalling. Spalling results from water entering concrete or natural stone, and it means the surface has flaked off, peeled, or popped out. In 2015, the spillway had degraded further, and by the most recent safety inspection report, which was performed in 2018 by Brent Johnson and Jacob Asgian of Olsson, an engineering firm with an office in Overland Park, the spillway was determined to be in poor condition, with exposed and corroded reinforcing steel. Vertical concrete drop structures along the spillway had been undermined or washed away, the inspection report noted.
“Concrete deteriorates as it ages,” Brent Johnson explained. “With the limestone bedrock there, the risk for erosion is low, but we recommend that the spillway be restored to its original elevation and height. Without intervention, the spillway will continue to deteriorate, lowering the lake level.”
Olsson did the dam and spillway inspections in 2015 and 2018, and the next one will need to be done in 2021, under the Stream Obstructions Act, which requires inspections every three years for high hazard dams.
“The city is looking to move forward with spillway repairs this fall, once funding can be found,” Johnson stated. “We hope to have minimal impact on homeowners. Contractors may have to draw down the lake, and the plans would need approval through the state bidding process.”
The city previously applied for FEMA High Hazard Dam Funding for planning and design of the dam embankment and spillway reconstruction, public works director Michael Kramer stated. They did not get that grant. Kramer listed necessary work as:
· Modification of the service spillway to include adding the required detention storage
· Investigation of the water supply lines, control tower and left downstream groin area
· Removal of the trees and woody vegetation from the embankment and spillway channel
· Repair of the erosion area adjacent to the downstream toe
· Repair of the front slope riprap
· Update of the emergency action plan
· Modification of the downstream embankment slope
“Typically, the responsibility to care for, upgrade, and repair as needed falls onto the dam owner,” said Bobbi Luttjohan, chief of planning at the Kansas Water Office. “At this point it is really up to the City of Gardner to raise the funds to pay for what is needed. We will continue to pursue avenues to assist all dam owners across the state, but as for now we cannot offer further financial assistance to the City of Gardner.”
The funds budgeted for work to begin would come from debt proceeds, with repayment by the city of Gardner, Kramer said.
The cost estimate for the spillway was $766,053, according to Public Works Director Michael Kramer. Staff anticipates the project cost to increase due to additional work requested by the Kansas Department of Agriculture, City Clerk Sharon Rose stated.
“The Kansas Division of Water Resources rejected the spillway plan submitted by the city because it did not include structural repairs to the dam itself that they deemed necessary to be done concurrently,” said Mayor Steve Shute. “Our engineers are working with DOWR to determine the next course of action. In the meantime, the 2019 funds for spillway repair are being held in abeyance in the General Fund until we get the go-ahead to move forward. More than likely, the spillway reconstruction will have to be done alongside dam repairs that are not currently budgeted. Our Finance team is already working on alternate funding scenarios to complete any DOWR mandated repairs. (We are also examining any and all grant opportunities, including federal grants, that can defray the costs of dam repairs.)”
The city of Gardner has worked diligently for several years to find funding from grant sources.
In addition to the FEMA High Hazard Dam funding, the city applied for grants from KDA (Division of Conservation, Kansas Department of Agriculture). State funding was denied because the lake was not a source for municipal water use, Albert Rukwaro reported in 2018. Gardner’s primary water source is Hillsdale Lake, and Gardner Lake serves as a secondary source.
“Hazard mitigation grants are few and far between with a high rate of competition when funds are available,” said Cary Gerst, assistant director of planning for Johnson County Emergency Management and Communications.
Dredging
The spillway needs work, and in addition, Gardner Lake residents have expressed concerns for more than 15 years about dredging the lake, which involves an additional action plan and action steps.
“DWR regulations do not address dredging,” said Terry Medley, Water Structures Program Manager with the Kansas Department of Agriculture. “Our jurisdiction is limited to the entire dam embankment, appurtenant works, and the original reservoir capacity. Dredging of accumulated silt is not under our purview as long as the previous are not affected. DWR only addresses issues that affect the functioning of the dam and/or public safety.”
Since water in reservoirs tends to be still, as such bits of sand, rock, dirt, and other material, collectively called sediment, that washes in typically settles to the bottom. With the passage of time this sediment builds up, thus proportionally reducing the total amount of water storage capacity in the reservoir. Dredging can improve water quality while concurrently increasing the amount of water storage capacity in the lake. City staff does not have any current cost estimates for dredging work, but the 2004 sedimentation survey included cost estimates ranging from $627,750 to $1,377,500. Dredging analysis looked to be under way in 2004, but the actual work was not complete.
“We had all of the dredging equipment to do the project at that time, even had worked out arrangements of a nearby land owner where we could place the dredge silt,” said Dave Penny, of the Aquatics Group.
In 2017, Rick Poppitz reported that the city anticipated about 60,000 cubic yards of sediment would be removed from the lake with a funding level of $280,000, and additional sediment would be removed as funds allow. Once again, the work did not occur.
“Due to additional siltation, but especially increases of trees and vegetation in the lake, the cleaning out of the lake probably has to be reevaluated after these 15 years,” Penny said. “It might be easier to clean most of the silt out with big, long reach backhoes and trucks than a dredge. In either case, it is technically possible and we as dredgers or an excavating contractor could probably do it.”
The town has grown from 3,000 in 1990 to 22,000 in 2020, and the needs have grown accordingly. The city has looked at multiple options for financing lake maintenance and repairs. Some options available to federal lakes have not been available to Gardner Lake. Although Gardner Lake originated as a WPA project, it has become a city, rather than state or federal, lake. James D. Bell, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, shared that they are available only for work on federal dams, and they are not set up to provide assistance to non-federal dams.
“We are continuing to work to ensure that the integrity of the spillway, dam, and Gardner Lake is being preserved,” said Mayor Steve Shute. “And no, we have no interest in selling the lake, or turning it into a mud hole. We would like to partner with Gardner Lake residents to dredge the lake …. The city - and our citizens - cannot reasonably be expected to exclusively bear the cost of dam and spillway repair and dredging.”
Many Kansas reservoirs have encountered the same set of challenges that face Gardner Lake, and it often takes coordinated, caring work to confront and resolve these concerns.
“Much the same thing is happening to many similar lakes across our state and region. Because a large proportion of them were built during the early to middle part of the last century, there are now widespread common problems developing in terms of age-related deterioration and particularly as they relate to the increasingly adverse effects of nutrient enrichment (lower water quality) and sedimentation (loss of water storage capacity),” Campbell said. “Back when they were first built less thought was probably given to the importance of maintaining our lakes since much less was known about how long they could be expected to last, and knowledge was also lacking about how water quality would in many instances be diminishing over time. At present public funding is insufficient to effectively address what altogether amount to very expensive fixes, and of course any needs currently being identified for Gardner Lake are likewise multiplied across the state.”
Jude Kastens, research associate professor with Kansas Biological Survey, emphasized the need for maintenance.
“Not that there is any solace in this observation, but know that you’re not alone as a community with a lake undergoing natural wear and succession that only diligent (and often expensive) maintenance can counter,” Kastens said. “We built all these lakes, now they’re just trying to integrate into the environment.”
The Gardner Lake Association will discuss these concerns at their next meeting, at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 28. *** This article first appeared in a different version as three articles in the March 12, 2020 Gardner News. **
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