Golf Course Work Nearing Completion

Among all the rain drops Lundell Construction continues to move forward on the East Central Project.  It's been a while since I updated so we'll a lot of updates here.  Lots of pictures with this update!

First a note of caution:  Golfers should note that in the area of work being done the bare ground where work has been done is very muddy following rain events especially heavy rain events.  Please use caution when trying to pass in those areas and use the available gravel cart path between the two ponds and holes #1 and #9 for crossing the project area.

Work is getting close to complete on the golf course but the weather will still play a major role in the progress and the final timing of the work and when the contractor can move off site.  With the upcoming week looking very wet it is possible that the project will not see much progress this holiday shorten week.

Lundell was doing finishing touches last week to the major earth work parts of the golf course work (Phase 1) touching up the berms on the north and south sides of hole #9 and finishing up the final grading on the two ponds.  That work is now finished.

Contractor working on finishing up the berms on Hole #9

Shot of Hole #9 looking east with the berms to the side and the pond .

On Thursday the contractor installed the iron filings in the southern pond.  The filings will help reduce the phosphorous that comes off the golf course.  In the following picture you can see the product being used.

Photo of the iron filings

The filings were mixed with sand in a small cut our area of the east side of the pond shown in the picture below.  In that picture the contractor is filling the pocket area with sand prior to putting the filings on top.

Contractor putting down the first layer of sand

Once the sand was in place they placed a thin layer of the iron filings over the top.  The filings and sand were placed in two lifts or sections with each section being blended together.

Spreading the iron filings on top of the first layer of sand.

Once the filings were in place they used a tractor to till the filings into the sand and then a second layer was placed down with a final two inch layer of sand on the top.

Tilling the filings into the sand layers

The area will be playable must like a sand trap with the iron filings below the top layer of sand.  Water from the course draining to the west will filter into the sand area and filter the water before running into the pond.  Additionally, during heavy rain events the pond will fill up and the top layer of the pond will spill over into the sand area filtering that water as well.  The sand, iron filings area was built with a border on it to prevent the sand and iron filings from slipping back into the pond.

Since our last update the contractor also had their sub contractor in Storm Lake to work on the second bore under the railroad tracks.

The survey crew from the project engineers, Bolton & Menk were also in town this past week marking the areas for the cart paths.  The contractor then cut in the middle cart part (the path between holes #1 and #9) on Thursday.  Golfers are encouraged to use this route and this route only to cross the construction area for the time being especially following rain events when the other dirt areas will be muddy and impassable.

Survey crew marking out the cart paths

So what's left on the project?  The sub-contractors for seeding and plantings will be in (weather pending) this next week (May 28th - 31st) to seed the golf course and plant the plants in the ponds.  City crews will be installing the water lines through the project area and the sub-contractor for the paving will be in to pave the cart paths.  Once those tasks are complete the contractor will be ready to move on to another area of the project.

At the present time we anticipate the contractor to move to the north of the project area and start the digging out of the ponds north of the railroad tracks through the old abandoned railroad right-of-way that the City owns moving north to East 4th Street.  They are going to move there prior to digging the ponds in front of the condo area due to equipment availability.  We don't anticipate any construction to take place in the housing sub-division area or between the railroad tracks and HWY 7 until the pipe crew is back onsite.