The Iowa DNR is requesting that people interested in obtaining information and discussing the Jemmerson Slough Water Quality Enhancement Project in Dickinson County, attend an information meeting at the Lakes Art Center in Spirit Lake from 7-9 p.m., Monday May 5.

A meeting to discuss a proposed waterfowl refuge on Jemmerson Slough will be held later this fall.

Jemmerson Slough, located adjacent to the northwest corner of the city of Spirit Lake and comprising the headwaters of a major drainage area that feeds West Lake Okoboji, consists of about 190 wetland acres contained within a 932-acre public hunting area. Similar to many other wetlands and shallow lakes in the upper Midwest, Jemmerson Slough has become degraded due to excessive numbers of rough fish, static water levels that have prevented the wetland from undergoing natural and beneficial periodic dry cycles, excessive nutrient and sediment loading from rural and urban sources, and other factors.

The goal of the enhancement project is to return ecological health to Jemmerson Slough so that the system once again releases clean water to West Lake Okoboji and other down stream basins, and provides improved habitat for many species of resident and migrant wildlife.

Phase I of the Jemmerson Slough project was completed in 2006 and involved installing water control structures and making draw down channel improvements on two basins within the complex.

Phase II of the project is scheduled for construction this fall and will consist of dewatering the basin to remove rough fish and allow for the consolidation of bottom sediments and germination of aquatic plants, replacing the outlet culvert with one that allows for future water level manipulations and fish exclusion capabilities, and installing a pump system that will allow for removing water that will not gravity flow through the culvert.

During construction, extensive measures will be used to prevent turbid water from reaching West Lake Okoboji and other downstream waters, including the use of silt fences around construction areas, dual floating silt curtains in the borrow area immediately downstream of the construction site, and allowing pumped water from Jemmerson Slough to filter though seven partially dewatered downstream wetlands before entering West Lake Okoboji.

* For additional information, please contact DNR staff Mark Gulick at (712) 336-1840 (ext 112) or Chris LaRue at (712) 336-3524.