Fox Waterway lands FEMA grant to fix flood damage along Chain
Fox Waterway Agency employees spent most of last June chasing five- to seven-acre floating bogs that ripped free from the shoreline during flooding on the Chain O' Lakes.
At the time, agency officials feared the effort would cost thousands of dollars it would never recoup.
However, FWA Executive Director Ingrid Danler announced the agency has received $1.4 million from the Federal Emergency Disaster Agency to help offset those clean up costs. Another $500,000 will be paid to reimburse the FWA for repairs to a peninsula damaged during flooding.
In all, the Chain area will have $2.5 million to address flood damage. Of that amount, $1.9 million will come from FEMA and the remainder is a 25 percent local match, FEMA spokesman Len DeCarlo said.
"There are some other larger projects (peninsula repair) that will be funded when the agency completes the work," DeCarlo said.
The Fox Waterway Agency has received $490,000 to replace ruined equipment, and material and labor costs for repair work already completed, Danler said. A second check for $941,000 has been used to pay to rebuild 27 shorelines destroyed by swift floodwaters on Grass Lake.
"I find great pride in complimenting the FEMA staff for their helpfulness, flexibility and true professionalism in handling these claims," she said, adding Kent McKenzie and the Lake County Emergency Management Agency helped secure the funding for FWA.
The worst damage in the Chain occurred when 80 acres of floating vegetation - called bogs - ripped from the shorelines on Grass Lake near the Chain O' Lakes State Park, Danler said. Those land masses broke free and floated away during flooding, and clogged channels and creeks between June 16 and about July 15.
To recover and repair the bogs, she said, FWA personnel used boats to push the floating masses back into place.
The agency's costs ranged from damage to boat engines to the purchase of telephone poles and 16-foot long two-by-four boards that were driven through the bog and into the lake bed to anchor bogs into place.
"Because of the strain on the motor, we damaged and had to replace almost every boat engine we had," Danler said.
The remaining $500,000 coming from FEMA will be used to rebuild an entire peninsula on Grass Lake that was destroyed in fast-moving flood currents, she said.
"The first peninsula we need to repair is the one that protected the Chain O' Lakes State Park from the Fox River rushing in from Wisconsin," Danler said. "There was a peninsula near the boat slips that was totally eroded away by the rushing water from up north."