Catching Up With the Doings on Upper Lake Oahe

Catching up with the doings on upper Lake Oahe.

3 Cost estimates for an impoundment at Beaver Bay off of Highway 1804 are in and have been shared with the state Department of Transportation, state Game and Fish Department, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pierre, S.D., and various elected officials.

"We’ll give them a few weeks to read them over and digest them, then we will call a meeting to discuss it and see where we will proceed," said Randy Bosch, chairman of the Voices for Lake Oahe.

The goal is a 900-plus-acre lake that would be independent of Lake Oahe’s water level. Instead, the impoundment would be fed by Beaver Creek and contained by a weir.

A fishery in the Linton area would be an attraction, Bosch said.

"We’d see the return of some people coming to the area, and it also would be an area for locals to use," he explained Monday.

As Lake Oahe has receded during these seven years of drought, so has the area’s attraction as an angling spot.

In its high-water heyday, that North Dakota stretch of Lake Oahe "was one of the best walleye areas in the entire United States," said Bosch. "We had people coming from all over."

Now Bosch said he scarcely sees vehicles with out-of-state license plates.

3 The corps’ Pierre office, which is responsible for many of the boat ramps south of Bismarck, has some plans for the Hazelton boat ramp.

The corps will extend the parking area at the existing ramp, contract for a dozen more electrical hookups and install playground equipment.

The work on the parking lot probably won’t be done until next spring and summer, while the playground equipment will go in this summer, said John Bartel, the operations project manager in the corps’ Pierre office.

The corps doesn’t plan to do the one thing that the VFLO wants most: moving the boat ramp farther south.

"We will see if we can make it work. It’s the less expensive of our two options," Bartel said Monday.

Keeping the ramp at its existing location requires annual maintenance, which includes dredging the channel.

"We’re watching the channel. It’s starting to come back north. Maybe Mother Nature will help us this year," said Bartel.

VFLO members weren’t happy about the corps’ decision.

"It doesn’t mean they can’t have their minds changed," said Rynee Kellar.

"Whatever they need to do, we need to have some access down here," said Bosch. "Maybe (the corps)needs to do some permanent work. The plan seems to be to wait for the water to come back up. Ithink it’s time to make some decisions."

3 To help recreation, Sen. Byron Dorgan has earmarked $300,000 for maintaining ramps and recreation areas when Lake Oahe is low. The money is part of an appropriations bill from the North Dakota Democrat, who chairs the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

(Reach outdoor writer Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or richard.hinton@bismarcktribune.com.) Shores of upper Lake Oahe alive with activity

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