County tidying Lake Contrary area ahead of possible dredging project

By Chris Fortune

As Buchanan County continues to explore the feasibility of dredging Lake Contrary, some nearby residents would like to see more efforts to clean the area before the project begins.

Many residents in St. Joseph, especially those who live near Lake Contrary, support a dredging project, but even with water in the lake, the area may not be a top destination in its current state.

One resident said the area is split between homeowners who take care of their properties and others who don’t.

“They need to get on these people,” Marilyn Andersen said. “And I mean, people are not going to come to the lake if they got to drive through a bunch of messy places.”

Andersen said property owners in the area should also take accountability for the cleanliness of their land.

“You’re driving down Lakefront (Lane), and you get all this trash,” she said. “If it’s their home, clean it up. People don’t want to see that.”

The president of the Lake Contrary Association said she also believes there are areas that need improvement.

“I think that there’s been a blind eye left to that for a little while,” Ethel Catron said.

Buchanan County Commissioner Ron Hook said a county code enforcement officer notifies residents of ordinance violations through mail with concerns about the property, but they also provide a solution.

The county allows these residents to request a dump trailer they can fill, and the county will come back to empty it at no cost to the owner.

“It’s just really something that we’ve kind of kicked into high gear now, since we have a lot of people that are interested in cleaning up down around Lake Contrary,” Hook said.

Hook said one Lake Contrary resident recently demolished a property they owned because they were tired of paying taxes on something they didn’t use, and others have removed trailers from certain properties.

“No one’s living in them, and they don’t want people in there that shouldn’t be in there, and so they’ve cleaned it up that way,” he said.

Another local resident said the county fixed a long-damaged road following a Buchanan County public meeting about dredging the lake in March.

“Over here on Promenade Lane for years, the road could not go all the way through, and the trees were growing up through the road and everything,” Brandy Tarwater said. “Since the last meeting, they had come down here and they fixed the hole in the road, put a new piping in, because that pipe actually fed the water that was coming down from the rainwater, and it pushed it to the lake.”

There are hopes that efforts to clean and improve the area will create a trickle-down effect for others living near Lake Contrary.

“I think people getting on the bandwagon and having self-pride would help a lot,” Catron said.

Andersen said it has been a couple of years since she has seen a meaningful amount of water in Lake Contrary. She enjoyed waking up in the morning and walking to her window to watch birds go into the lake.

She doesn’t see the birds as much anymore, so she welcomes the idea to dredge the lake. But she doesn’t want to see the lake conditions deteriorate like she has in recent years.

“I would support (dredging) it,” she said. “If when they dredge it, then they need to maintain the lake as well.”

The county is currently awaiting the test results of soil samples from the area, which will be sent to the Army Corps of Engineers for a permit. It’s just one of many moving parts the county must consider before being able to make a decision to dredge the lake.

As the project begins to gain steam, Catron said dredging Lake Contrary would benefit all of Buchanan County.

“I’m very hopeful that it will move forward,” she said. “It has to move forward.”