LINCOLN COUNTY, S.D. (KELO) – The process to drain down Lake Alvin and prepare for the spillway reconstruction project starts July 15.
The water level will be lowered by 10-15 feet over the next week and a half, said Adam Kulesa, the planning and development administrator for the Game Fish and Parks, in a July 9 Lincoln County Commission meeting. Kulesa said the drain down of the lake will accommodate more room for overflow water once the spillway starts being removed.
“There’s an added level of protection we need to do with the design and construction limits to make sure we can account for the potential for any kind of rainfall event so we don’t have something catastrophic happen,” he said.
According to Kulesa, the lake will only lower about a foot a day and the water will be drained into Ninemile Creek. Construction is expected to last from now until spring 2025. During that time, the lake will not be open for public use.
“Even a foot of drawdown can drastically change the beach area and the boat ramps, so we decided as a department that we would just close everything on that first day,” Kulesa said.
He expects the western part of the lake will be empty once the lake has drained the 10 feet. There might be some minor fish kill, Kelusa said, if the lake continues to drain down through the winter.
“The fishery team is prepared to have a contingency plan to restore the fishery to pre-construction condition. We’re hoping mother nature cooperates with us and we have very minimal, but just in case it doesn’t, there is a plan with our fishery team to replace those fish.”
The spillway reconstruction is five years in the making after a 2019 flood damaged the structure. In 2021, Gov. Noem recommended $5.6 million from the state’s budget be allocated toward the Lake Alvin and Newell Lake reconstruction.
Game Fish and Parks officials said they’re taking advantage of the closed beach for the drain down to renovate the area.
“With lake levels drawn down significantly, it’s not very usable from a park usable standpoint, so we want to take this small window starting here this month through the rest of the year to make some small improvements to that beach area,” Kulesa said.
Jason Bowman, a GF&P district supervisor who oversees the Lake Alvin State Recreation Area, said they will be tearing down the old picnic shelter and creating two new smaller ones, moving the drinking fountain and fixing the retaining wall. He also said they’ll be fixing the drainage issues under the cement platforms.
“From the original construction back in the 80s, it’s sunk about six inches which is causing our drinking fountain line to break, our shower line to break and the dirt is starting to erode down by the sidewalk,” Bowman said.
