Representatives from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation may secure funding from the State Bond Commission on Sept. 17 for the Baton Rouge Lakes Master Plan. The financial assistance will allow the next phase of the project — dredging large sections of the lakes — to begin.
BRAF project manager Lauren Crapanzano Jumonville said BRAF hopes to obtain $3 million in Priority 2-allocated funds to pursue construction for the project.
The money for the master plan thus far has been contributed by donors, private foundations and philanthropists, according to the project’s website.
BRAF executive vice president John Spain said the total project budget is a steady $40 million, with about $20 million of the funds for dredging the lakes, and the other half saved for landscaping on the edges of the lakes.
LSU President F. King Alexander enlisted BRAF’s help to revamp University Lake’s coastal landscape. If the Baton Rouge Lakes are not dredged and cleaned, the idyllic bodies of water could morph into a murky swamp, Alexander said.
“It’s conceivable that if we get enough money — resources or grants — that by the end of the year, we may be sectioning off part of the lake, draining it and dredging it,” Alexander said.
Spain said the plan aims to improve the lakes’ water quality by 70 to 80 percent.
BRAF collaborated with the SWA Group and Jeffrey Carbo Landscape Architects to create the 175-page plan.
Five public meetings were held over the summer for neighborhood residents and students to voice concerns about the project. The planning groups took public input into consideration when developing the plan, said Kinder Baumgardner, SWA Group president.
“We’ve tried to listen to what the students wanted … There’s a whole list of amenities that are included in that final plan,” Spain said.
Baumgardner is taking the lead on the project’s landscape architecture elements. He and other planners worked to satisfy the needs and wants of the community.
Some of these amenities include bicycle paths, kayak and canoe rental spots, additional beach space by Wampold Memorial Park and extra land in front of the Lod Cook Alumni Center.
“I think construction can start as early as 2018 if we have the funding and everything in place,” Spain said. “Then it would probably take about 24 months to actually do the work.”
Baumgardner said the lakes need to be dredged because they are at least 4 feet too shallow.
“Shallow water gets hot quickly, and the oxygen that is in the water is less available to fish,” he said. “So it just creates negative ecological consequences.”
After ruling out various methods to fix the problem, SWA decided to test out an unusual technique: sectioning, or “coffer damming.”
Cofferdams are temporary enclosures built within a body of water that divide it into sections. Water is pumped out enclosure by enclosure until the particular section is dry enough for workers to operate on it, Baumgardner said.
“It’s a technique allowing us to drain the lakes, put equipment in there, do the excavation really quickly but also do it with a lot of specificity, and then move on to the next piece,” Baumgardner said.
He said the process would avoid the catastrophe of draining the entire lake at once and allow workers to use dredged soil to create additional recreational land along the lakes’ banks.
Baumgardner said he would not expect the coffer damming to last longer than one month.
“We think it’s a really good plan that is going to make a lot of people very excited about a new identity for the city of Baton Rouge,” Baumgardner said.