The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a story on the effort of former Alderwoman Mary Nelson — and many others — to “Restore the Magic” of South Milwaukee’s Oak Creek Mill Pond.
Check it out here. Among the new information in the article …
Cost of dredging the pond and disposing of the sediment starts at $830,400 and climbs as high as $1.5 million, according to preliminary estimates from the county’s Department of Administrative Services and released by Jursik. She represents the 8th supervisory district, encompassing St. Francis, South Milwaukee, Cudahy and a portion of Oak Creek.
State and federal grants could help pay part of the dredging costs, she said. …
The state Department of Natural Resources last week ordered Milwaukee County to complete some long-neglected dam maintenance and hire an engineer to evaluate the structure by June 2014.
The dam is made of dolomite stone blocks and it stands 18 feet tall in a ravine at Mill Road, according to DNR water management engineer Tanya Lourigan in Milwaukee. Water from the shallow pond spills over the top of the 35-foot-wide stone wall.
On Oct. 26 and Nov. 19, Lourigan inspected the dam and earthen embankments on each end.
An engineering analysis of the wall is needed since stones are missing on each end of the dam where it meets the embankment, Lourigan said in a Nov. 27 report to the county Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture.
Among the maintenance to be completed by June 2014: remove all trees and brush, including stumps, from the embankments and fill in holes; and repair an inoperable sluice gate needed to raise or lower water levels on the pond. A valve controlling the gate must be tested annually in the future to ensure it will work in an emergency, such as creek flooding, or for dam repairs, Lourigan says in the report.
She rated the condition of the dam as “conditionally fair” because of the extensive tree growth on the embankments, deterioration of the masonry wall and inoperable valve.
Where do I stand on this? My previous post on the petition effort sums up my position.
I feel strongly about this issue. I hate to see the Mill Pond and its surroundings in the state they are in. They could be so much more, and they have been so much more in the past.
We need a path to making the Mill Pond a recreational treasure for South Milwaukee once again, a community gathering place. That’s why I am 100% behind all of the work being done by Pat Jursik, Mary Nelson and others to find a solution here — one that involves the city, county, Friends groups and other parties. It’s complicated, and likely costly, but I think an investment in the Mill Pond is a good one — and one that is long overdue.
What do you think? Post your comments below!
South Milwaukee Blog 
We also need to consider the sediments are not coming just from South Milwaukee. Sure we can dredge and clean up the Mill pond,but we also need to encourage our neighboring communities to implement some way of stopping erosion and sediments from the creek system. Stopping soil from eroding would be the best solution,but may be the most difficult to implement. I understand that placing vegetative coverage may help to ward off soil erosion. Has this been brought up as a solution?
I guess any recognition of the problem is progress. It is unfortunate that the Journal article chose to demean the park advocates and focus on nostalgia related to ice skating in its article about the Mill Pond. They neglected entirely the heritage issues and the fact that an absolutely stunning feature of Milwaukee County Parks, a feature which is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places and the Milwaukee County registry of Historic places, has been so badly neglected.
The county continues to overstate the maintenance cost and infer that, since South Milwaukee collects a tax for storm water management, that it should pay for some of the maintenance of the pond and dam. It is difficult to understand how lack of maintenance becomes a storm water management cost.