Page 4 - The Friday Flyer • May 15, 2015

A-4 THE FRIDAY FLYER
MAY 15, 2015
The area between the launch ramp parking lot and Goetz Rd. was chosen for the new dog park after neighbors protested the plan to build it next to Sierra Park. The area will be as much as 60 feet wide and measure the length of the parking lot.
Dog park planned for former berm area
BY SHARON RICE
EDITOR, THE FRIDAY FLYER
The removal of the berm next to the East Port launch ramp to make room for a real dog park brings to mind a historic undertaking that brought both excite- ment and disappointment to Canyon Lake residents: the Dredging Project.
It’s been a decade since “Nessie,” the dredge, scooped muck from the bottom of East Port – only making it so far as the cove next to the condominiums be- fore legal problems sent her packing.
Nessie! Oh, the joy she brought when
she first arrived in the waters of the East Bay in May 2005. Oh, the consterna- tion the yellow beast created when her components couldn’t keep up with the demands of sucking sediment from the East Bay’s depths; the frustration she stirred up when she sat in dry dock for months, waiting for new equipment to help her run more efficiently; the prob- lems she caused when a lawsuit claimed she was involved in a public works proj- ect, and a judge determined those who operated her should be paid state pre- vailing wages.
Oh, sad day for all residents who hoped Nessie would be one of the so- lutions to Canyon Lake’s water quality problems when the dredge and all its equipment had to be sold.
“Nessie N8DX” was the official name given by the manufacturers of the dredge that plied the eastern end of East Bay and Lucky Cove, scooping up 40 years of silt deposited by Salt Creek.
According to LESJWA spokesperson Mark Norris, it was with great hope and a valiant effort on the part of the LES- JWA board, the Regional Water Quality
Control Board, City Councilman Jack Wamsley and other City and POA of- ficials that a portion of the $15 million dollars in funds from the Clean Water Act, approved by California voters in the late 1990s, was provided to the Property Owners Association to dredge Canyon Lake, which is part of LESJWA’s 750- mile watershed.
In those early days, the Dredging Project was awarded the 2005 Unique Collaboration Award from the Santa
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PHOTO BY DONNA KUPKE