Update on Lake Koshkonong Dredging

It has been several months since our last email update, but you will be pleased - if not amazed - to learn that together with the US Army Corps. of Engineers, the RKLD has been working closely with WI DNR.


For the past 4 months, the three government entities responsible for lake restoration and recreation - the Army Corp., the DNR and the RKLD - have been meeting to plan activities that will result in dredging areas of Lake Koshkonong, and using the spoils to form islands designed to break wind fetch, curb shoreline erosion, and improve the fish hatchery.

On March 12, the contracts and agreements among the 3 stakeholders were agreed upon and signed by the ACOE Commander at Rock Island, IL, by the DNR Secretary, and by RKLD Chair Brian Christianson.

You will be receiving regular updates from this point forward.

Phase 1 - Mapping the Lake Bed

You may have noticed a large johnboat plying the waters of Lake Koshkonong over the last few days -- that is a bathymetric survey boat supplied by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District.

The boat is traversing the lake on regular pathways spaced approximately 1000 feet apart to collect lake bottom elevation. The data will be used to update the bathymetric (lake bottom) map that has been around for decades.

This work is one of the first field activities of the Lake Koshkonong planning project.

Rock Koshkonong Lake District has partnered with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Wisconsin DNR to conduct an intensive planning and design study for Lake Koshkonong.

The impetus for this project began with the District's success in obtaining funding from the state Legislature for development of a comprehensive plan to improve the Lake.

This project, conducted under the Corps' Planning Assistance to States program, leverages RKLD's funding with that of the Wisconsin DNR and Corps of Engineers.

Upcoming activities will include additional data collection, and planning workshop to discuss your ideas for improving the lake.