DECATUR, Ill. (WAND)- Dredging work on Lake Decatur could finish by year’s end, project leaders told local and federal officials Wednesday.
“We’re looking to finish possibly by the end of this year,” one company leader told officials during a project tour. “Contract completion date is December 31, 2019, so if we achieve that by the end of this year, we’re well ahead of schedule.”
Interviewed afterward, Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe pointed to factors that could affect the timeline of the $91.7 million project.
“That’s going to depend on a lot of things,” Moore Wolfe said. “It depends on weather. If we get a really early winter, that could slow it down or stop it, and you never know when you’re going to have a technical issue, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’re going to get this done a year early.”
The project aims to increase the lake’s capacity by 30 percent, the equivalent of 52 days of additional water supply. Moore Wolfe said that could have economic benefits.
“It’s a great resource for us,” Moore Wolfe said. “(There was) a company we lost about ten years ago because we didn’t have enough water for them.”
Workers also showed officials how they power the project with electricity rather than diesel engines, a factor they said reduces noise and the risk of spills into the lake.
