Shoreline project progresses
Staff reporter
Volunteers and employees of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks braved the rainy weather Monday to work on the Marion Reservoir shoreline project.
Sixteen people assisted with the all day project at Cottonwood Point, completing 400 feet of the shoreline. Previous efforts resulted in about 100 feet of shoreline being completed in a three-day period.
Gayle Makovec, owner of Makovec Construction, provided a skid loader and tree cutter for the project.
"(With Gayle's assistance) We were able to speed up the process dramatically," said Peggy Blackman, the 319 EPA Water Quality Grant coordinator. With the tree cutter, Makovec was able to cut the trees at the ground and remove five foot to six foot cedar trees.
Tractors provided by the corps of engineers and wildlife and parks dragged the trees to the shoreline. There they were anchored.
The Marion County Road and Bridge Department provided an excavator. James Olsen, excavator operator, assisted with the setting of the three tiers of trees for the anchoring process.
"This project will at least reduce if not prevent erosion from wave action and ice along the shoreline," said Blackman. "Six to eight feet of shoreline has already been lost in some places where this project hasn't been done."
Volunteers and employees were Gayle Makovec of Makovec Construction, James Olsen of Marion County Road and Bridge Department, Travis Schafer of City of Marion, Dale Ehlers of Quails Unlimited, Margo Yates of Marion Chamber of Commerce, Dale Smith and Warren Kreutziger of the Marion Lake Association, Paul Gerlack of wildlife and parks, Neal Whitaker and Mike Knak of corps of engineers, John Ottensmeier, Bruce Padgham, Glen Shattack, Marvin Peterson, and Herman Kukuk, Makovec's father-in-law from Oklahoma City.
