Some interesting video of the draining of this lake in southeastern Iowa. It covers about 175 acres, and it was decided it needed to be drained because of some concerns with pollution from pesticides and such from the surrounding areas. Plans are to drain the lake and let it dry for a least a year. Removal of the silt in the bottom along with reshaping the bottom and making it more habitable for the fish, is expected to take up to 3 years. Original plans thought it would take several months to drain this much water, but I took this video after only 2-weeks of pulling the plug. I have never witnessed anything like this before.
Took this with my Phantom 3 Advanced.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.  So there had to be fish in the lake, correct?  How did they go about removing them?

Phantom One Posted at 2017-11-13 10:59
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.  So there had to be fish in the lake, correct?  How did they go about removing them?

Good question, and what I was told was they let them go out the drain on the one end of the lake, which was draining into a small nearby river via a creek. I have no idea how true that may be. You will notice though there is no vegetation at all on the bottom of the lake. I'm curious as to just how much of a fish population there really was. Certainly caught my eye when I drove upon it. There are some tires and such you  may or may not be able to see, which is what was put in the shoreline to help promote the fish life. This lake was apparently up to 50 feet deep in some areas.

RicardoGray Posted at 2017-11-13 11:07
Good question, and what I was told was they let them go out the drain on the one end of the lake, which was draining into a small nearby river via a creek. I have no idea how true that may be. You will notice though there is no vegetation at all on the bottom of the lake. I'm curious as to just how much of a fish population there really was. Certainly caught my eye when I drove upon it. There are some tires and such you  may or may not be able to see, which is what was put in the shoreline to help promote the fish life. This lake was apparently up to 50 feet deep in some areas.

Yeah, no vegetation at all.. couldn't have been too much, if any at all, wildlife in them waters.  lol

Good use of the P3A and a useful bit of footage to monitor how it all goes. Be nice if you could do a few followup's as it goes along.
Presume lake was man made?

sky wombat Posted at 2017-11-13 12:07
Good use of the P3A and a useful bit of footage to monitor how it all goes. Be nice if you could do a few followup's as it goes along.
Presume lake was man made?

Yes, I plan on doing a couple follow up throughout the project.

Nice watch!  Keep posting the progress.

Very interesting.
Looking forward to see how it looks next.

Great job! Thanks for sharing!

I recently flew over the Lake Geode project here in Iowa. It has been a year now since the draining of this lake was started. Weather has caused some delays, but here is an update of what it looks like. A lot of vegitation has now grown up from the bottom. They are excavating areas of the bottom and taking the soil up to an adjacent area as you can see in the video. The project is supposed to be completed by 2019, and then the natural filling of the lake will be left to "Mother-Nature". It is estimated it will take a minumum of 5 years for the lake to return to normal levels.

Great to have the follow up footage. Now don't forget to mark all the deeper bits as possible fishing sites when they refill the dam.

Hope they restock it with bass.

sky wombat Posted at 2018-7-18 11:56
Great to have the follow up footage. Now don't forget to mark all the deeper bits as possible fishing sites when they refill the dam.

Yeah, that would be a good idea. LOL I'm not a fisherman myself, but it will be interesting to see how it goes.

ALABAMA Posted at 2018-7-18 13:01
Hope they restock it with bass.

Hard to tell. I would think being a state park they would do something.

very interesting...did not know about this lake in Iowa previously