Rapid City Beach committee begins improvements

Details

Published on Wednesday, August 17, 2016

By Sheila Runions

Banner Staff

After 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 government 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 necessarily 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.

“We will be looking at putting down new beach sand this fall and a swimmer’s dock in front of the beach next spring. I would invite Rivers Banner to follow our progress and certainly, come back to Rapid City on Canada Day because we’re going to throw a big grand opening beach party.”  

While a project of this magnitude will cost thousands, Jim gave no estimation of costs. Council has provided some funding and the committee is pursuing various grants. Though the beach issue may be solved — or at least a plan in place — the problem of silt in the reservoir is a separate issue and a larger undertaking; the committee is working on a proposal for all levels of government. The proposal will include some solutions and suggestions for long-term maintenance plans.

“The big issue is the reservoir itself, with all the silt that has formed there. MIT is aware of it; they did a study on our reservoir in 2012 and have a 256-page report; they are quite aware of what’s going on here. What we’re looking at is their idea of cost, which probably varies from what we’re trying to deal with. We have an outfit from Saskatchewan that may be able to offer an alternative to their solution but until we have more information on this, I can’t really report anything, but I do think it looks promising. Once we’ve put together a very good package with a lot of the information they will need, we’ll submit it to all levels of government so we are all aware of what we have proposed. Then we’ll go through the process. I think our committee will keep pushing and find out where we’re at, we’ll keep communicating, not just hand over a proposal and leave it with them. We’re very optimistic that in the next five years we can have a solution and cleanup of the silt. 

“We have a man-made structure and because of that, I think there will always be silt issues. I think general maintenance will be a big key once it’s done. Maybe once a year we need to talk to MIT and do a cleanup, lower the water and spend a day to clean it, and then fill it up again. Once bulrushes get in, it’s easy for the silt to collect around them; it’s an ongoing thing so controlling the bulrush growth is key. To have a real nice reservoir for tourism and things like that, we need general maintenance and perhaps dredging of the lake, which we think was last done in the 1960s. We need to set aside some money and maybe look at a 15- or 20-year plan. If we have money set aside, we can do this every decade or so. We want to find out what we can do that will help with this so it won’t be such a chore in the future. Because this is a man-made structure, we’ll never fully control the silt issue, but maybe we can get a better handle on it.”