HORSESHOE RESIDENTS CONCERNED OVER LAKE

OLIVE BRANCH, Ill. -- Horseshoe Lake is filling up, and area residents around the 2,400-acre lake are concerned.

"We need more water," said Elmer Roberts Jr. of Olive Branch. "They need to raise the spillway dam another eight inches now."

"If we don't get more height on the dam, we're dead," said Don Masterson, who operates two businesses around the shallow lake.

Roberts, Masters and Clayton Greenley were just three of many area residents who crowded into the Olive Branch Community Center here Monday night to discuss the recently-released "Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County Project and Study Status Report" handed out by the Illinois Department of Conservation.

Representatives from several DOC divisions fisheries, engineering and conservation, wildlife, forestry and nature preserves were on hand to answer questions during the informal session.

"We wanted this to be very informal," said Richard Lutz of a the DOC's impact analysis division. "We gave out the reports and invited the people to visit with various representatives."

Of primary interest was the section of the report concerning sedimentation in the lake.

"Horseshoe Lake is currently losing its capacity at the rate of about 0.5 inches per year," said the report.

"This has resulted in a major loss of fish habitat," said Jim Mick of the DOC fisheries division, who reported on the findings. "More importantly, however, is the increased fishkill potential."

He explained: "A winter kill could occur from ice cover causing oxygen depletion. Due to the shallowness of the lake about five feet in its deepest part ice, with 4 to 6 inches of snow, could result in a complete fishkill."

He said that during the summer a fishkill could occur following several days and nights of hot, calm, cloudy weather with night temperatures in the mid-80s.

"Several severe fishkills have occurred in the last five years in portions of the lake," said Mick. "It appears that Horseshoe no longer has sufficient depth, due to sedimentation problems, to insure that winter and summer fishkills will not happen."

The state, in its study of the lake, suggests some alternates for reducing the sedimentation.

"A detention basin is the most effective alternate," said Mick. "This will provide the largest sediment reduction, and is about twice as effective as the land treatment (watershed)."

Fishing activity has declined at Horseshoe Lake over the past 25 years.

A recent creel study to determine angler usage and catch and harvest characteristics showed about 16,000 angler trips were made to the lake each year, down 55 percent from a similar study in 1968.

"Angling pressure is about 30 to 33 hours per surface acre, which is about moderate," said Mick. "Some of the decreased usage of the lake has been due to loss of fish habitat and the reduction in the amount of fishable areas."

Another reason cited for the decrease in angling activity is the fact that several new lakes Cedar, Kinkaid, Devil's Kitchen, Lake of Egypt and Rend Lake have cropped up during the past 25 years.

"We're looking at all the options for Horseshoe," said Mick. "We need to do something soon; it's just a matter of time until we have a big fishkill here."

Meanhwile, construction is under way to replace a deteriorating dam and spillway area at the southeast end of the lake. The spillway is near the Promised Land Road, and is expected to be completed by summer.

"The new spillway is being constructed so that sometime in the future it could accommodate a lake elevation to 324 feet," said Gary McCandless of the DOC's engineering division. "That's about 3 feet over the current maximum elevation. But this won't be any immediate thing. We're still studying the overall report."