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Environment

West Lake Park Restoration

Scott County Conservation Board

Nearly 50 years after it was built, it's time for major restoration work at West Lake Park. The Scott County Conservation Board is advertising for an engineering firm to oversee the project that could take a couple of years and cost a couple million dollars.

Executive director, Roger Kean, says the four lakes in the park are suffering from accumulated silt and chemical runoff from nearby farms and subdivisions.

"The in-park work will require dredging and re-armoring, or protecting of the shorelines. And because there are four separate lakes, it's going to be fairly involved. And it will require the lakes to be drained sometime in the future."

The lakes in the park are even included on the Iowa list of "impaired waters," mainly because of the effects of sediment and algae on fish habitat. 

Built in 1970, West Lake Park covers a total of 620 acres, and its four lakes range in size from 12 to 60 acres. 

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.