The Garden City Telegram
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Recent rains slow work on reservoir
Published 7/2/2009 in Local News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
HODGEMAN COUNTY — The joke among Finney County commissioners goes that they'll build a statue of Commissioner Don Doll in the bottom of HorseThief Reservoir.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram — Crews from Max Jantz Excavating, the general contractor for the Horse Thief Reservoir project, work Wednesday at the site on the main part of the dam. Pawnee Watershed Manager Ron Allen said the dam part of the project is nearing completion and should be finished by mid-October.
As the 450-acre recreational lake fills, the water will eventually rise over the statue of Doll, covering his mouth, so commissioners won't have to listen anymore to Doll's reservations about the lake not filling.
The joke occasionally comes up during meetings when Commissioner Cliff Mayo, a member of the Board of Directors for HorseThief Benefit District, is giving an update on the park.
While the area has had below average rainfall in past years, Commissioner Roman Halbur said, if the rainfall continues picking up, the lake should fill. And the area would serve as a recreational area and economic development opportunity in southwest Kansas.
It's estimated that with average weather and rainfall, the lake could fill in four to five years, according to Pawnee Watershed Manager Ron Allen. There have been some years, though, he said, that the lake could have been filled in a season or two.
The more-than-$14-million project funded through a .15-cent sales tax approved in 2005 by voters in Hodgeman, Finney, Ford and Gray counties is nearing completion, Allen said Wednesday as he drove through what will be the reservoir and recreational area.
The project is making progress -- the benefit district just hired a park manager who will start in August, and Kansas Wildlife and Parks staff are figuring out what to stock the fishing areas with, Allen said.
Still, for as long as Allen has been working with the project, he said he's heard reservations like Doll's from some people.
Recent rains, though, Allen said, have confirmed his belief that the reservoir will fill eventually.
Allen said about 6,200 acre-feet (an acre of water a foot deep) of water is needed to fill the reservoir before excess water goes down through a tower and is released from the area. Allen estimates Hodgeman County averages 20 to 21 inches of rainfall a year.
Crews with Max Jantz Excavating, the general contractor for the project, were doing dirt work Wednesday.
Allen said the construction crews are about six weeks from having the dirt in place. The main part of the dam, which crews were working on Wednesday, lacks about 13 more feet of dirt. When done, the dam will be nearly 86 feet high. Allen believes it will be mid-August by the time the dirt is moved. Three boat ramps for the lake are finished, and by mid-October, Allen anticipates the project will be mostly done.
Parking the vehicle, Allen pointed to the lowest boat ramp recently constructed, saying after the rain, they actually had enough water to launch a boat from the lowest ramp.
The reservoir site had about 7 1/2 inches of rain in June.
Allen said the biggest single rain has been 2 1/2 to 3 inches, which has shown him the area doesn't need catastrophic rains to fill the lake and that a healthy amount of water here and there will help.
Allen said a lot of the water has had to be released from the reservoir because work still is occurring.
On Wednesday, water was pouring from the principal spillway, which is a pipe extending through the dam that is designed and sized to release excess water in the reservoir in a controlled manner. The water eventually ends up in the Pawnee River.
The time the reservoir takes to fill will depend on the amount of water coming in, he said. The reservoir will fill from runoff of rainwater and other precipitation flowing into Buckner Creek and then flowing down into the reservoir.
On the Web
Download a map of the planned HorseThief Reservoir recreation area.
HorseThief Reservoir: http://www.horsethiefres.com/
What recreational opportunities would you like to see at HorseThief? Talk about it at SWKTalk.com.
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