Lagoon has been drained before, 1962

Last week's blog detailed improvements made to the Capaha Park — then Fairground Park — lagoon in 1932.

This blog continues with articles dealing with the 1962 draining, dredging and further drama. Unlike the project 30 years prior, the 1962 work wasn't plagued by recurrences of water lilies. Rather, some of the improvements made to the banks and drainage proved faulty and had to be repaired.

Here is the Southeast Missourian's coverage of the project from start to finish.

Published Feb. 3, 1962, in the Southeast Missourian:

TO START MONDAY ON LAGOON WORK

The Exchange Club announced today work of dredging the Capaha Park lagoon to deepen it and improve it for fishing for Cape Girardeau youngsters will start on Monday, weather permitting.

The city park department has started lowering the water level of the lake and a dredge contributed by the Mary Construction Co. has been placed on the east side of the lagoon ready to begin the work.

It is planned to dig a deep channel at one side of the lagoon. Fish will be driven into (it) and remain there during the period of dredging and repairing the lagoon banks. Later, rough fish will be culled.

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Published Tuesday, Feb. 6, 1962, in the Southeast Missourian:

Dredging of the Capaha Park Lagoon began Monday. Considerable headway was made in removing the muck and refuse that had collected on the bottom since the last renovation a number of years ago. The dragline operator in the top picture is engaged in dredging a small channel on the west side. Fish in the lake will be stored here until the project is completed. Some culling is to be done. Viewing the operation (above) are members of the Exchange Club, which sparked the program and is working with the city. From left are Bill Hampton, Joe Krueger, club president and project co-chairman, Henry Hazel, Park Commissioner J.W. McBride, Paul Blattner, John Eggimann and Fred Elfrank, project co-chairman. The bottom photograph shows a part of shoreline left by receding water and illustrates how rip-rap along the bank had slipped below bank level through the years, allowing erosion of the edge of the lagoon. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

SOME BIG FISH IN PARK LAGOON

The fish grew big in the Capaha Park lagoon. At least some of them did.

Commissioner J.W. McBride related at City Council meeting Monday that lowering water has revealed a 35-pound buffalo and another weighing between 16 and 17 pounds.

The big fish was caught and taken to public works department headquarters where it was dressed.

Other fish have followed receding water in the lagoon, which is being drained preparatory to dredging and restocking.

The commissioner said a large number of park benches had been removed from the bottom of the lake, evidently left on ice which melted in past several years, or else thrown there by vandals.

The benches, he reported, were taken to the Arena Building and are being repaired.

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Published Wednesday, Feb. 7, 1962, in the Southeast Missourian:

BIG ROUGH FISH BLAMED FOR LOSS OF LAGOON STOCK

The mystery of the disappearing fish in the Capaha Park lagoon was largely solved when workers Tuesday hauled out the monster, 60-pound alligator gar shown in the (above) photograph and a second half it size.

Pictured with the 4-foot, 10-inch gar are Park Commissioner J.W. McBride, left, and John Eldridge, public works superintendent. Posed beside the huge fish to illustrate its size is Terry Taylor, 10, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bill E. Taylor, 1416 Rose.

In the other photograph, William Bollinger uses a pitchfork to spear a 20-pound buffalo, one of a number taken from the lagoon.

On Tuesday, as waters receded in the dredging operation, a small truck load of carp and buffalo weighing 15 to 35 pounds were removed from the lagoon.

Those familiar with the feeding habits of the gar said a pair such as those taken from the lagoon can exhaust the game fish population of a body of water.

They attributed the decline of catchable fish in the lagoon to the pair of big rough fish and added that the two must have been deliberately placed in the pond several years ago.

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Published April 24, 1962, in the Southeast Missourian:

RESET SEWER TO ALLOW FULL LAGOON DRAINAGE

A city sewer line is being reset deeper to allow the complete drainage of Capaha Lagoon which is undergoing extensive overhaul this year, Park Commissioner J.W. McBride said today.

He said about 20 inches of water remain in most places in the lagoon which has been dredged, drained and cleaned.

The city and the Exchange Club are cooperating in the job which began in February and is expected to be completed in October.

A valve will be installed in the sewer line so that in the future it will be a simple matter to drain the lake, the commissioner said.

After the lagoon is dry, a bulldozer will reshape the island.

Work also expected to be done soon is the rip-rapping of the bank.

It is hoped to have the lagoon bed in good condition in time for refilling by the fall rains. It will also be restocked with young fish in the fall, Commissioner McBride reported.

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Published July 26, 1962, in the Southeast Missourian:

Come next summer, this once more will be picturesque Capaha Lagoon where ducks flitter about and children fish. But right now, it is nothing more than a weed-grown hole, complete with the inevitable abandoned tire. The concrete and pipe in the foreground is the drain by which the lagoon was dried for the current overhaul operation. The repair is expected to be completed for the fall rains to refill the lagoon. The view here is looking from west to east with Broadway at upper right. (Southeast Missourian archive)

WILL RESUME RIP-RAPPING ALONG BANKS OF CITY LAGOON

Some rip-rapping around the outer bank of Capaha Lagoon, an operation which is now suspended, is expected to resume in a few days and go into full tilt in about three weeks.

The bank protection is part of the overall renovation of the lagoon which began Feb. 5 and has included draining,dredging, removing debris and rough fish, reshaping the islands and devising a drain for the body of water.

When current operations are completed, the plug will be put in and fall rains are expected to return the Capaha Park lagoon to normal. Arrangements with the State Conservation Commission have been made for restocking the lake with fish.

October deadline

Park Commissioner J.W. McBride said today he feels there is ample time to complete the repair work before the fall rains and puts Oct. 15 as the approximate deadline.

The city park department and the Exchange Club are jointly conducting the project.

The rip-rapping on the shoreline of 700 to 1,000 feet around the outer edge is a Park Department phase of the job and is about one-third completed.

Commissioner McBride said the two men he has had on that operation are able to place about 30 to 35 feet of stone per day.

He said he plans to use five or six employees later to complete the rip-rapping in a relatively short time. The added manpower will come, he went on, when a construction operation at Arena Park is completed.

The two men who have been working on the bank have been taken off the job, Commissioner McBride said, to permit the completion of some of the Exchange Club's operations.

"There was no point in us rip-rapping until we saw how deep the Exchange Club was going to cut to the bottom," he remarked.

The club has been scraping the bottom and has come out with about 1,000 yards of new dirt.

The city Department of Public Works has been hauling dirt away.

Joe Krueger, chairman of the project for the club, said if the bottom became a little dryer, more dirt would be taken out to make the lagoon deeper and cleaner.

His group is rip-rapping the two islands and is about half finished.

Mr. Krueger said some delays in this operation have been encountered because the rock donor, the Federal Materials Co., has not always had its loader available.

"But we are in no particular hurry," Mr. Krueger said, indicating there is enough time to finish the work before fill-up time arrives.

He said the Exchange Club will also place lights on the island.

CHILDREN, DOG KILL OFF DUCKS

Capaha Lagoon will have to be almost completely restocked with ducks next year, Park Commissioner J.W. McBride said today, because children have stoned most of them to death this summer.

He added that there also has been a dog in the neighborhood which has killed many ducks.

Commissioner McBride said when he lagoon goes back into normal operation, the ducks will have the islands for protection.

Employees of the city's Park Department worked at installing rip-rap on the bank of the Capaha Park lagoon in this undated, unidentified photograph. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

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Missourian clippings don't reveal how long it took to refill the lagoon after work was completed in the fall of 1962, but by the following spring, there were already indications that the labors of city employees and Exchange Club members may have been wasted.

Published April 1, 1963, in the Southeast Missourian:

Enclosed in the wire cage is a new outlet structure for overflow of the Capaha Park lagoon. It leaks and water in the lagoon is pushing through it. The new structure was built to replace the one at right. The large hole at left, three feet in diameter and three feet deep, was being worked on today by Park Department crews after a Missourian reporter last week called attention to the condition. He observed the hole was filled to the lagoon level, an indication that water seeps under the outlet structure and may be flowing underground alongside the outlet pipe. Pipe and wire fencing are unpainted and rusting. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

LEAKS, EROSION, PIPE RUST

PARK LAGOON IN TROUBLE

By BOB TODD
Missourian Staff Writer

What's to become of the Capaha Park Lagoon? Last year the lagoon was drained and dredged. While the water level was down, rip-rapping and a new outlet structure were installed around the lagoon.

It appears the rip-rap and outlet structure will be short-lived in spite of the money and effort which went into the project.

The water level is still below the full point in spite of recent hard rains. The first rain, in which about 3 inches fell, filled the lagoon, but an underground surface drain broke and allowed the water level to fall back to about the level before the rain.

Now the lagoon stands about 2 feet below full level. This is about 6 inches below the bottom of the rip-rap, and waves continue to eat into the earth at the foot of the structures.

Rip-rap is a term for concrete, gravel, rock or other material laid along the shore of a body of water to stop wave erosion or washing.

The outlet structure is designed to hold the water level at one point. When water rises over that point, it is drained away through the structure. When it is back down to the correct level, no water is supposed to be drained.

Inlet structures are pipes coming into the lagoon with concrete slabs placed below them to keep the in-flowing water from washing a deep hole in the lagoon.

A Missourian reporter visited the park to inspect the new rip-rap, outlet and inlet structures.

This photograph shows how wave wash has undercut the concrete block rip-rap extending around the park lagoon, eating into the soft soil beneath the concrete blocks. Metal stakes, linked by wire, keep the blocks from sliding into the water. In the foreground a concrete slab, un-reinforced, has broken away from the inlet structure after water washed away beneath it and it collapsed under its own weight. Similar breaks, less pronounced, are to found around the lagoon. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

He found the new rip-rap undercut in many places by the wave action it is supposed to stop. He also found that erosion from land-side run-off has cut behind and under the rip-rap in many places.

The outlet structure leaks.

The old concrete outlet structure was closed off last year and replaced with a masonry structure. The seams in the masonry are not water tight and the structure is losing one of its functions — allowing water to leak away even when the lagoon is below full level.

The steel piping and fencing around the outlet structure is part-galvanized and part plain steel. None of this has been painted and rust is already heavy. If and when water levels cover the bottom of the fencing, it will be impossible to paint the structure and rusting will probably intensify.

Rip-rap on all sides of the lagoon is undercut to some extent. The northwest and northeast corners are deeply undercut for considerable distances. Only steel stakes and wire keep the rip-rap from sliding into the lagoon.

Along the east side, there are at least six places where run-off water from the surrounding park has eroded holes and pockets along the bank behind the rip-rap at present, about 24 inches below full level for the lagoon.

Behind the outlet structure, there is a cave-in hole about 3 feet deep and about 4 by 4 in size with some water in the bottom.

The hole suggests that perhaps the water draining from the lagoon is not all going through the pipes designed to carry it. If this is the case, further and deeper cave-ins could be possible.

Repair of the hole was started this morning by the Park Department.

At present, there are cracks in the rip-rap where water can seep in and, during winter, freeze and break the rip-rap. The rip-rap is of masonry work, with concrete blocks about 1 foot square and about 4 inches thick tied together by mortar or cement.

The cracks apparent in several paces around the rip-rap indicate it is already beginning to break up even before the water level of the lagoon reaches a normal stage.

There is evidence that concrete around the inlet structures will not last. Slabs below the inlet pipes are cracked and broken. Retaining walls above the inlet pipes are allowing water to seep under them. This will eventually eat the earth away and let the structure collapse.

Cracked

Much of the concrete used in the inlet structure is already cracked or broken off. One broken piece on the east side, about 2 feet wide and about 1 foot thick, shows no evidence that any kind of re-enforcing material was added to the concrete.

The project of renovating the lagoon and structures was undertaken by the city in conjunction with the Exchange Club.

Joe Krueger, chairman of the lagoon project for the Exchange Club, said his club set up $1,500 out of its funds for the project. He said they also contacted contractors, suppliers and others to donate time or equipment to do some of the work.

The city used its trucks, park crew and in general undertook the project of rebuilding the outer rim of rip-rap around the lagoon. The city also built the new outlet structures.

Mr. Krueger said the city engineer visited the lagoon and helped the club plan its stone rip-rap on the two islands in the lake. The engineer was supposed to lay out a water line around the outer rim, he said, but he did not know if the engineer was asked by the city to help in planning the outer rip-rapping.

Park Commissioner J.W. McBride said the leak in the outlet structure is slight and can be repaired by tuckpointing. He said the undercutting of the rip-rap is no problem either since there are steel stakes driven into the ground every 6 feet and wire stretched between the stakes to hold the rip-rap in place.

Neither the stakes nor the wire is painted or otherwise protected from rapid rusting, it was observed.

Waiting for rise

In regard to the holes in the earth behind the rip-rap, Mr. McBride said park forces are waiting for the water to rise before filling in the voids. He said rain would only wash the new soil through and keep the holes open now.

John Walther, city engineer, said he did not help plan the city's project.

Along the northwest corner of the lagoon, water has washed away the soil from beneath the bottom of the rip-rap. It is held in place only by stakes and wire. The photo shows difference in distance to water at various points along the rip-rap. Erosion also has eaten away at soil at top of rip-rap, as shown, and in other points along the shore has washed holes beneath the upper level of concrete blocks. There is some belief that the variation of block level may be such that some may not be reached by the water when lagoon is filled. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

He said the city used salvaged concrete blocks to build the outer bank rip-rap. The Missourian reporter found extra blocks in the park. He found they easily crumble in the hand.

Qualified bricklayers say it is hard to get a good bond between bricks or cement blocks which have grown weak and crumbly with age and weathering.

Mr. McBride added the city hired a bricklayer to construct the outer rim of rip-rap and the outlet structure.

Mr. McBride said he did not seek professional advice in constructing the rip-rap other than having the projected water level surveyed and staked.

Adjustment

The waterline survey was partially done by one man, who quit before the job was completed, Mr. McBride said. The next man to survey the waterline adjusted the old figures upward 6 inches, he related.

The Missourian contacted the University of Missouri extension office in Jackson and found that it would have drawn up plans for rip-rapping if it had been requested to do so.

The extension service, it was said, has done similar free work for cities and towns in the past.

There is belief the rip-rap will probably cave in, in a few years at most, leaving ahead a big job of pulling the old blocks out of the lagoon and constructing new rip-rap again.

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A few days later, repairs were initiated. Workers contended that the article was wrong in one instance: There was no leak in the overflow outlet. Instead, the leak was under a secondary drainage structure. That leak was repaired, and efforts were also made to adjust the rip-rap and repair sections of the banks, where wave action had undercut the concrete block perimeter.

The work to improve the lake, and to repair those improvements, contributed to the Park Department running in the red later that year.

Published Oct. 4, 1963, in the Southeast Missourian:

CITY PARK OFFICE IS IN THE RED

The once-affluent City Park Department has climaxed a three-year economic plunge by falling into a $3,000 deficit, but Park Commissioner J.W. McBride sees brighter days ahead.

The department's balance is listed as overdrawn by $3,027.80 as of the end of August in the city's monthly financial statement issued last month.

Commissioner McBride attributed the condition to rising labor costs — particularly last winter — the acquisition of heavy equipment, expenditures at the swimming pool and the Capaha Park Lagoon and a park tax levy that was twice reduced in recent years...

Commissioner McBride had no figures on what the Capaha Park lagoon overhaul had cost his department, but said he kept two to three men on that job and added that considerable material was used at the department's expense.