Clean-up at Lake Macbride State Park from last year’s derecho is continuing and proceeding on schedule. Park Manager, Ron Puettmann, says they’re on track to finish later this fall after the massive storm ripped through the area August 10, 2020.
“We were hit pretty hard last year,” he said, adding, they received help from as far away as Backbone State Park and Keosauqua State Park to help with the cleanup.
“Crews came down bringing skid loaders and dump trailers,” he explained. “At the very least they brought chainsaws and equipment to create a combined force to get this cleaned up.”
Puettmann, who has been at Lake Macbride State Park for 25 years, says their priority was to get the park opened as soon as possible after the derecho, and adds they were able to open most of the park areas shortly after the storm. “We had to wait for a contractor with a boom truck to get to certain areas.”
He said the primitive campgrounds were opened in early spring and the lodge and modern campground were opened May 1.
Puettmann added that while clearing and pruning trees continued, they ran into an unexpected issue — finding many Ash trees infected with emerald ash borer. “We’re putting a heavier focus on the Ash trees, now.”
It can take between five to seven years to see any park-wide signs of infestation in the Ash trees. “After that, we will begin seeing lots of dead ash trees – it creates an exponential spike.”
He said they’re focusing on Ash trees within populated areas. “We’re going to take these trees down and get a head of it,” he said. “Dead Ash trees propose a significant risk.”
Throughout the cleanup, Puettmann says volunteers from the community helped with the clearing the downed trees. He gives much credit to the many volunteers who came to the park. “We had some volunteer groups come up and it was very important to us. I want to give a shout out to them. It made a big difference and was a huge benefit.”
DNR salvage log saleThe Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) hosted a virtual meeting May 26, and invited the public to discuss the sale of 58 hardwood logs salvaged from trees at the park.
The DNR contacted 30 contractors and timber buyers regarding the upcoming log sale. and Puettmann said the logs came from any storm damaged trees that went down and were not too difficult to get out. “These all were readily accessible logs of decent quality,” he explained.
The majority of logs put up for the sale were red and white oak. “There was some walnut but not much. We went through the bidding process and received one bid.” Pierce Lumber, Inc. out of Belle Plaine won the bid for the logs.