CHICKASHA – A new contract to demolish 13 dilapidated docks at Lake Chickasha was awarded by the City Council.
Slemp Welding Power Excavation of Gracemont was the lowest of seven bidders, at $49,500 for the job.
Most of the docks were homemade, and all of them are dilapidated and hazardous, Parks and Recreation Director Spencer Winzenried said during the Sept. 3 council meeting.
Last year he set aside $30,000 for removal of the docks, but two bids came in more than double that amount and a third bid was rejected outright. The lowest and best bidder was Washita Construction, of Chickasha, which priced the package at $66,677.
Although the contract was awarded last March to Washita Construction, President Malisa Bramblett and Winzenried subsequently agreed it wouldn’t be financially feasible to do a partial job, the parks director indicated in a conversation with Southwest Ledger. Consequently, new proposals were solicited.
Besides Slemp’s bid, the other six ranged from almost $56,000 to a little over $89,000.
The contractor must dismantle the deteriorated docks in their entirety and dispose of all waste material in an approved landfill; use of explosives to perform the job is prohibited. “The goal is to have them removed by the end of the year,” Winzenried told the council.
All of the docks are on the southeast side of the lake, he noted. There are no docks on the west side of the reservoir.
Removal of the docks is part of “a larger park improvement program,” City Manager Keith Johnson said.
Lake Chickasha attracts large numbers of visitors on certain holidays but could be a year-round tourist attraction – if it had bet ter amenities.
“We should treat Lake Chickasha like we do Shannon Springs Park,” City Councilman Kelly Boyd said last September.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Board drove to the lake June 5 to tour the facilities there and discuss its needs. “We’re trying to do some master planning,” Boyd explained.
Restrooms, security, and trash receptacles top the list of needs.
Improving the quality of the lake water is also part of the overall goal, Johnson said.
The water in Lake Chickasha is not fit for human consumption without significant treatment. The lake is being considered as a supplemental source of drinking water after the new $74 million water treatment plant becomes operational in a couple of years.
Lake Chickasha was constructed in 1958 for the purpose of supplying water to the residents of its namesake town. Before inundation, the lake bed was farm and pasture land.
Soon after construction, the lake was abandoned as a primary drinking water source because of high levels of dissolved solids, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission’s Water Quality Section noted in a 1994 report.
“Deposits of gypsum in the watershed and underlying the lake contribute to these dissolved solids and result in excessive amounts of sulfate. Dissolved solids and sulfates in the concentrations found in Lake Chickasha do not hinder primary productivity or water quality for aquatic organisms, however this water is difficult and expensive to treat for municipal drinking purposes.
City officials and civil engineers from Freese & Nichols believe that despite its subpar quality, water from Lake Chickasha, when processed through the city’s new water treatment plant , would exceed contemporary potability standards.
Blending water from Lake Chickasha with water the city buys from Fort Cobb Reservoir “can meet your needs now and into the future,” the F&N consultants said, although they did acknowledge that Lake Chickasha “has some water quality challenges.”