Work begins to restore lake at Forest Hill Park

SLIDESHOW: Lake restoration

The first step in restoring a historic lake in Forest Hill Park has begun with a push to rescue fish and other aquatic life there.

A dredging crew began pumping water out of Reedy Creek yesterday from a narrow channel that snakes through the wetland that has swallowed the lake over the past two decades. Workers then began netting fish, tadpoles and whatever else living in the shallow pools that remain and sending them downstream toward the James River.

"We'll save as many as possible," said Clint Brown, a foreman for Metropolitan Environmental Services Inc., a Ohio-based company that is working with a sister firm, Mobile Dredging & Pumping Co. in Pennsylvania, to carry out the $1.7 million restoration project over the next six months.

Richmond officials say they hope the work will be done even sooner, bringing the lake back to the condition of its heyday decades ago, when it was a center for outdoor recreation in South Richmond.

"Give us several months and this will be a lake again, and a great amenity for the city of Richmond," said J.R. Pope, director of the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities.

The companies will suck up as much of the muck as possible with a hydraulic dredge that operates on a floating pontoon. Most of the work, removing more than 41,000 cubic yards of sediment, will be done by heavy mechanical equipment.

"This is all digging," said Eric Zeigler, excavation manager, who is working with his brother Erin to run the project with aseven-man crew.

The crew will drain the sediment and haul it uphill to a staging area near the park's entrance on West 42nd Street. There, it will be drained again and then taken either to landfills or a composting operation in eastern Richmond.

Pope asked for public patience with the project, which will coordinate the work with other users of Forest Hill Park. He also asked people to stay away from the construction zone around the wetland for their own safety.

Project leaders expect the major excavation work to be done by late August, when the restoration phase of the work will begin. The project will include two catch basins to collect sediment draining into the park from Reedy Creek and other tributaries. The basins will be cleaned periodically to prevent the lake from silting up again and reduce polluted runoff into the James.

This kind of work is routine for Eric and Erin Zeigler, but they're impressed by what the city is working to save.

"People are very fortunate here that this area was preserved ages ago and not developed," Eric Zeigler said.

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or .