The city of Aurora is moving forward with a $5.2 million project to improve the shoreline and dredge the bottom of Mastodon Lake, with the goal of improving its water quality and usability.
The lake, which is located at Phillips Park, is currently prone to becoming overrun with aquatic vegetation, among other issues, because it has become shallow over the years, city staff have said. On Tuesday, the Aurora City Council approved two contracts to address these issues.
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Both contracts — one for dredging at a cost of $4.6 million and another for shoreline restoration at a cost of nearly $580,000 — are going to Semper Fi Landscaping of Yorkville.
Ian Wade of the city’s engineering division has said the “long time coming and badly needed” project has been in the works for five or six years now, between planning, design work and grant chasing.
A large chunk of the project, $4 million, will be paid for using a state grant Aurora accepted last year.
Mastodon Lake was first excavated in the 1930s. Since then, sediment and decaying organic matter have built up at the bottom of the lake, dropping the average water depth to less than 2½ feet, according to a city staff report about the project.
The lake being so shallow opens it up to warming, excessive nutrients and growths of algae and other aquatic vegetation, which limits things like boating and fishing, staff said in the report.
The city has recently used herbicide to control aquatic vegetation, plus has vacuumed sediment near the intake for the Phillips Park Golf Course’s irrigation system, the report said. But, staff noted that these are not long-term solutions.
So, Aurora started working with engineering firm HR Green to develop a project to address lake conditions.
The bottom of the lake is expected to see hydric dredging and to be reshaped, staff wrote in the report. The project will also create stabilized stone access points, install fountains and underwater propellers to circulate the water, and do various plantings in the wetlands and uplands to help filter incoming stormwater and help stabilize the shoreline.
The two bids came in just over the project’s $5 million budget, but they include things like contingency funds, so the project will likely still be completed within budget, Wade said during a committee meeting earlier this month.
Although a firm timeline has not been established, the work should be wrapped up sometime around the middle of next year, or at the end of next year at the very latest, according to Wade.
The two contracts were not discussed by aldermen at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. They were simply approved through the meeting’s consent agenda, which is used for routine or non-controversial items that are all approved with a single vote.