Dredging Mirror Pond won’t come cheap. Which means it might not come at all.
Today, during the Mirror Pond Management Board Meeting, we learned there’s 380,000 cubic yards of silt (affectionately referred to as “goo” or “warm Jell-O”) in the bottom of the man-made lake near downtown Bend. At $30-$50 per yard of silt removed (the quoted cost) a full dredge of the pond would cost $11-18 million!!!!!!!!!!
Since there’s no funding mechanism for the silt-filled pond yet in place, a capital campaign miiiiiiiiight prove difficult. Oh, and it’d only last for about 50 years. By the time our kids are George Clooney’s age, they’ll be, once again, trying to figure out what to do with the silt in the bottom of Mirror Pond.
Luckily, other solutions were also floated. Four of the eight options included dam removal or partial dam removal. One was a “do-nothing” solution and the other three involved some sort of dredging and/or sediment relocation. Project Manager Jim Figurski said clear options would be available for public viewing in June.
This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2013.
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It should be mentioned that at least $100,000 in taxes have gone into a process that simply rehashes the options that anyone could have foreseen before this money was spent.
A better use of the money would have been to detail the cost and implications of each option and THEN survey the public with (this time) a scientific poll which would give statistically valid results. Consultant overkill comes at a heavy price. After a hundred grand we are exactly back where we started!
Foster Fell