Lake Conway, built in 1948, is now 75 years old and its structures have long passed their useful life expectancy causing the need for its reconstruction.
“The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is beginning to see failures at an increased rate, requiring multiple repairs within the last few years. Additionally, this structure requires manual operation of gates to maintain water levels in the lake during rain events,” Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) said.
Over the course of the last two years there have been recent adjustments and rehabilitation processes to Lake Conway.
“The lake’s been down for about 2.5 years, certainly not down the whole time, [but] we get our spring rains that fill the lake back up, and we’re 2.5 years in. Mother Nature has done a whole lot, which is really the bulk of what we hope for and expect out of a renovation is just the various processes that Mother Nature does. All these lakes that people know and love are reservoirs, not lakes, they’re man-made, so really drawing it down and letting Mother Nature do her thing is somewhat a natural thing to do”, Nick Feltz who works for AGFC said.
Due to an increase and expansion of engineering and technology developments over the past 75 years, the previous gate system has been redesigned and now allows water to instantly release water.
This combats the rising lake levels according to AGFC’s website.
“We’ve been doing a bunch of our own habitat enhancement efforts as well, and that’ll continue far long beyond the duration of the renovation,” Feltz said.
There have been many recent developments to clean out all the boat lanes and allow for easier navigation while in the water.
Feltz expressed what people can expect moving forward in terms of the Lake and recent reconstructions.
“Once we have water in the lake, those same contractors will come back out and mark those boat lanes permanently with wooden utility poles. And so that’s another kind of key aspect of the project,” Feltz said.
The previous milestone for the construction on Lake Conway has been the recent pouring of foundation of the primary spillway structure and the dam getting put out for bid.
These replacements and renovations will allow a new opportunity for the central Arkansas area to maintain a water area as well as fishing area.
“The recently completed renovation of 341-acre Lake Poinsett near Harrisburg currently stands as the largest-scale complete lake renovation the AGFC has completed in its 109-year history. The proposed renovation of the 6,700-acre Lake Conway will eclipse that mark and stands to be one of the largest fisheries projects the agency has embarked upon since the same lake was originally created,” AGFC said.
Feltz discussed the access areas available at Lake Conway such as bank fishing, boat launches, parking lots and lots of improvements overall that constructors are laying groundwork for.
“You really can’t go 75 years without doing some regular maintenance and we’ve done some maintenance on the dam when it’s been absolutely necessary Conway’s our biggest AGFC owned reservoir. When you’re talking about empowerment management, especially like a lot of our other lakes where they’re less than a 1000 acres, it’s really standard practice to hit the reset button every 30 years or so,” Feltz said.
With renovations overdue, an AGFC director willing to push for reconstructions and funding aligned perfectly with the opportunity to rebuild.
“Honestly as of a year before the project was approved within our district, it was something we were planning for as this future hypothetical, but was really still kind of a pipe dream,” Feltz said.
Stay updated with past and current reconstructions at Arkansas Game and Fish Commission website.
