Workers expected to finish placement of monitoring devices in Bonita Lakes
By Staff
WATER MONITOR – Charles Havard, left, and Scot McNeil run soil density tests at the dam on Bonita Lakes lower lake. Workers took soil samples and installed water monitoring wells Thursday. Photo by Carisa McCain/ The Meridian Star
By Chris Whitaker / staff writer
June 14, 2002
Workers with a Mobile, Ala. engineering firm are expected to finish placing devices today inside the dam at Bonita Lakes' lower lake to monitor the source of a leak.
Hugh Smith, Meridian's assistant public works director, said the devices will be able to detect exactly how much water is seeping from the dam. The devices are being installed by Malcolm Pirnie Inc.
City workers began slowly draining the lower lake in October to look for possible leaks in the dam near the spillway. They have been monitoring the dam and the lake the last few months.
Smith said they are looking into the possibility that a spillway pipe that stretches to a water plant on B Street may be leaking.
He said Bonita Lakes may never have the same volume of water as it did before the work began; the lake is currently between 6 and 9 feet below the level it was at last fall.
Smith said the long-term goal is to monitor the leak and develop the best possible repair plan to present to the state Department of Environmental Quality's Dam Inspection Division.