RIVERS
BANNER August 19, 2016
ersary v i n Celebrating our 108th An
Gazette-Reporter Serving the Rivers, Rapid City and Oak River areas for 107 years
Volume 109, Issue 8
89¢ + tax
Photo by Sheila Runions
With significantly reduced water levels, work can more easily be done to clear the area of foliage infestation at Rapid City.
Beach committee begins improvements By Sheila Runions Banner Staff
A
fter council asked for citizen support earlier this year, Rapid City Reservoir and Beach Committee was organized in June. The committee is comprised of two representatives each from the chamber, wildlife association, Lions club, one LUD councillor and one Oakview councillor. Chairman Jim Meakin says, “Our committee was formed on the request of RM of Oakview, to work with all levels of government on identifying problems and searching for solutions; it is time to look at answers. The RM has been very progressive and very helpful; I want to commend them for looking ahead to form this committee and in providing funding. There’s a lot of intelligent people on this committee; we are able to communicate well with different levels of govern-
ment so far and we’re getting some positive feedback. ” For at least 70 years the swimming area in Rapid City was weed free and an enjoyable place. In the past 10-15 years, cattails and assorted growth have begun to take over, to the point that one can no longer boat or canoe from north to south because of all the vegetation and shallow waters. “We have had a couple of flood years in the last decade that have impacted our reservoir and beach. The last big flood in 2011, a whole massive amount of water was coming down that river [Little Saskatchewan] and large amounts of silt collected in our reservoir, which created an ideal medium for bulrush vegetation. That water carves out the edges of the banks, which creates its own silt; it didn’t all ne-
cessarily come from Minnedosa or farther upstream. Minnedosa has control over their dam; we have a Manitoba Infrastructure & Transportation (MIT) provincial crew overseeing ours from Dauphin.” The committee has long-term plans and realizes the issues will not be solved overnight. Although solutions to their problems require much work and many months or even years, their first priority was the beach front. “We believe what people wanted to see is the beach cleaned up and to get rid of the vegetation in the front to make it more appealing. Our committee is going to oversee the whole beach complex — pavilion, playground, washrooms and campsites — and see what we can do there.
We’re looking at maybe doing an update to the washrooms; we want to make it appealing for our tourism.” To that end, work has begun to restore the beach area. “MIT has been very co-operative with the cleanup and it sounds like they want to stay in contact with us and work with us on any projects. MIT has removed some planks from our dam to lower the water level in the reservoir so work could be done as not to have any silt filter back into the water as we were excavating. Don Waldon volunteered to use his backhoe to remove the bulrushes in front of our beach area and pile the material on the shore. Some of this material will be used in creating a berm which will act as an erosion barrier. The remainder of the material will be hauled
away for landfill. During this time, MIT used this opportunity to clean up the bulrushes in front of our dam and fish ladder.” To give one an idea of how much fluid has been released, this picture was taken on Hwy. 24 looking west to the dam, a distance of more than a block away. The water mark stains on the concrete footings clearly shows the tremendous amount that was drained. MIT equipment was removing growth on Thursday, Aug. 4; the local committee excavated their beach area on Aug. 3. By Aug. 16 the beach excavation had dried enough that berm building was about to begin. Renewal of the beachfront should be completed before next summer. Continued on page 6