Beaver Lake likely to stay at current levels

Beaver Lake’s new water level may be permanent.

The Jasper Utility Service Board’s water committee agreed to recommend the spillway and dam not be raised to increase the lake level about 11 inches.

The Jasper Utility Service Board has been exploring increasing the lake level to its pre-spillway and dam reconstruction level since the project was completed in 2012. The state and federally mandated project increased the height of the dam and increased the width of the spillway from 25 feet to 80 feet. When the lake refilled with water, property owners complained the water level was lower than it had been before the work was completed.

[adrotate group=”16″]

Earlier this month, the utility service board opened bids for the construction to raise the water level. Krempp Construction bid $334,400 and Force Construction of Columbus — the company that completed the work on the spillway — bid $531,789.

In addition to the construction costs, the utility service board would have also paid Christopher Burke, an Indianapolis engineering firm, $45,000 to supervise the construction.

The committee agreed this was too much to ask of the 8,800 water utility customers to shoulder the cost of the construction. A 17 percent water rate increase took effect this month and will appear on customers’ bills in August. A portion of that increase was based on the potential for the Beaver Lake work. However, the city is facing a major water main replacement project under U.S. 231/Newton Street and the money not spent on the Beaver Lake project will likely go to offset the cost of that project.

The water committee is interested in the lake due to its creation as a secondary water source. Although it is used as a recreational lake, it was created to provide water to the City of Jasper in the case of a drought as occurred in 2012.

“We contacted the Corp of Engineers to release more water from Patoka Lake when we had the drought issues in 2012,” Utilities General Manager Bud Hauersperger said. “The engineers asked us to release water from Beaver Lake because Patoka Lake was low because they hadn’t held back enough water in the spring.”

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers operates the spillway at Patoka Lake. The lake was created as a water reservoir that would also control flooding downstream along Patoka River. After a record-setting rainfall in 2011 that sent lake water over the emergency spillway that flooded portions of Jasper, city officials requested the engineers not retain as much water in the spring to prevent the overflow from occurring again. Unpredictably, the drought occurred in 2012 forcing the City of Jasper to respond to a lack of water in the pool created by the dam under the Third Avenue Bridge.

The engineers had kept less water in the reservoir from the spring and were reluctant to open up the slew to provide more water to the city. They asked the city to pull water from Beaver Lake, but it had not refilled from the construction of the new spillway and could not provide water to the thirsty city either. The engineers agreed to increase the water flow and three days later; water restrictions were loosened in the city as levels returned to normal.

The Corp of Engineers had been more restrictive on the level of water kept in the reservoir from the spring rain. This year much of the shoreline is under water and the beach has not been accessible for most of the season.

In considering whether to raise the level of Beaver Lake or not, the board took into account that Patoka Lake was the main source of water and if needed, could be called on to provide more water. “If the water stops going over the Third Avenue Dam, I will be on the phone to the Corp of Engineers immediately so we don’t have the same problem we had in 2012,” Hauersperger said.

The board felt the increased water level at the lake wouldn’t have provided much of an additional benefit to Jasper ratepayers for the cost. The city is exploring dredging Beaver Lake to remove sediment that has continued to fill the basin since it was created. Removing the built up sediment will increase the lake’s water capacity and life.

The Jasper Utility Service Board will consider the recommendation at its next meeting, Monday, July 20 at 7 p.m. at the City Hall, 610 Main St.