Cyclist riding near White Rock Lake. Photography by Danny Fulgencio.
The Dallas City Council voted to execute a contract with an outside firm to complete preliminary engineering design services for the White Rock Lake dredging project.
The Park and Recreation Board approved the contract with Freese and Nichols, Inc. on Dec. 8.
It has been more than two decades since White Rock Lake was dredged. Previously, the lake has been dredged in 1937, 1955, 1974 and 1998.
In 2014, a study from the Texas Water Development Board found that the volume of water in the lake was down nearly 8,000 acre-feet from its original volume in 1911, when the lake was built.
A dredging feasibility study was completed September 2020.
“It is time for a new dredge,” City Council member Paula Blackmon said at the meeting.
Blackmon, whose district includes White Rock Lake, was dressed as a beaver outfitted with all the junk that clogs the lake, including vegetation, trash, spoons, basketballs and cigarettes. She thanked the park department and Dallas Water Utilities for their work in this most recent development in the dredging project.
“I’m hoping everybody will join me in dredge baby dredge,” she said.
District 9 City Council member Paula Blackmon wears examples of items that collect in White Rock Lake at the Dec. 14 City Council meeting.
