Aurora plans massive dredging of Mastodon Lake

Mastodon Lake at Phillips Park in Aurora will soon get an overdue clean-out that will improve its quality and usefulness.

The Aurora City Council is expected to approve contracts Tuesday for $5.2 million to dredge the manmade lake at the city-owned park and restore its shoreline.

“This project is way, way, way long overdue,” Alderman Ted Mesiacos, in whose ward the park is, said during a recent committee of the whole meeting.

The city started planning the work more than six years ago. It was suggested in a 2020 Mastodon Lake Stormwater Plan.

Mastodon Lake was created in 1934 as a Civil Works Administration project. Workers discovered a skull and other bones from a mastodon, an elephant-like mammal that lived in the area roughly 12,000 years ago. Those items are on display at the park.

Sediment from runoff has built up in the 28-acre fishing lake, “which is not great for aquatic life and promotes algae growth,” Kurt Muth, assistant public works director, told aldermen at the meeting.

He estimated the current water depth to be no more than 2½ feet because there is at least 2 feet of sediment to be removed.

Semper Fi Landscaping Inc. of Yorkville will get the $4.6 million contract for dredging and the $576,183 contract for shoreline restoration.

The project will include reshaping the lake bottom, creating stone access points for visitors, installing aeration fountains and directional circulators, and plantings that will filter runoff into the lake. The shoreline will also be stabilized.

Aurora is receiving a $4 million grant from the state to fund part of the work.

If the council approves the contract on Tuesday, work is expected to begin in July. The city expects the work to be finished by 2027.

Phillips Park is a 325-acre site that includes a zoo, an aquatic center, an elk grove and a golf course.