DNR board gets to see Lake Darling

The Natural Resource Commission of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources met in Brighton Wednesday afternoon, holding their meeting in a cabin venue beside Lake Darling, hours from their typical meeting place in Des Moines.

“Periodically throughout the year we try to have a two-day meeting, where we do the meeting and have a tour,” DNR Director Kayla Lyon said. “(The location is) based on different projects we’ve done through the department. Lake Darling is a wonderful opportunity for us to show the beautiful structures and facilities that we have here, talk about the lake restoration projects we’ve done, and all of that.”

Lyon said Lake Darling was selected from an array of options as a signal of support for donors involved in the park’s projects.

“We talked earlier in the meeting about lots of partnerships with different groups,” she said. “This is a great example at Lake Darling of some of those, so we like to get the commission out here and show them some of the outside of Des Moines.”

George Antoniou, a DNR planner who led the projects at Lake Darling, said it was a model program for the rest of the state.

“For us it was a blueprint for how to look at lakes in Iowa that had been around a long time,” he said. “We learned a lot and really have been using this model a lot throughout the state in terms of Lake Darling giving us a path forward to how to look at these older, constructed lakes.”

Antoniou said Lake Darling had seen major renovations in the last decade focused on shore erosion, sediment removal and infrastructure overhauls.

“The dam itself had some structural issues that were addressed in the early ‘90s, but then in the 2000s with an engineering study, was one of the dams that was showing fatigue,” he said. “There was actually a whole dam replacement at Darling, which isn’t typical of our restoration work. A lot of times it’s a lot of repair and maintenance issues, but this is more of a major reconstruction effort.”

Admittedly, the lake hasn’t been entirely issue free. In both June and July, the state declared non-swimming advisories for the lake citing dangerous levels of microcystin, a toxin produced by algal blooms, and E. coli bacteria. Despite these issues, Antoniou said the project was largely a success story.

“Iowa is still a very nutrient-rich state, and given the large drainage area … You’re going to be in a position during certain times of the year where you’re going to see some water quality issues,” he said. “(We’ve seen) some really good things with long-term trends in water quality from year to year. So you’ll see some problem spots pop up, especially weather-driven … all in all I’d say a very positive story, but acknowledge that you do see problem points pop up throughout the year.”