LAKE DELTON - Major progress is being made on several projects related to restoring the area in and around Lake Delton after it dramatically drained June 9 during heavy flooding.

County Highway A likely will be open to traffic in December, for example, and the lake will slowly start to refill this winter.

Here is a rundown of how the major projects are progressing.

Dell Creek Dam

Village of Lake Delton engineer John Langhans said the Dell Creek Dam improvements project is progressing nicely and is on schedule.

Staab Construction began the $1.3 million to $1.5 million project in mid-July as an emergency contractor, but wasn't officially awarded the contract until mid-August.

The project doesn't have a set end date, Langhans said, but it will be done in accordance with the lake's refill schedule.

The gates of the dam are expected to be closed around the first of December so the lake can start slowly refilling this winter.

Several improvements to the dam are being made, so it can withstand much heavier amounts of water, even more than what caused the lake to drain in June.

Spillway work and reinforcement of the dam are the major cruxes of the project, but sluice gate improvements also have been made to expedite the movement of water through the dam.

Concrete stabilization work, including repairing some cracks on the front of the dam, were completed in July.

A majority of the spillway work will be complete by next week, Langhans said. Ogee crest improvements and demolition and reconstruction in the area to accommodate the new spillways are complete. A side-channel spillway will be started immediately after the main spillway work is completed.

The improvements will increase the dam's capacity by 214 percent, more than enough to accommodate a 100-year flood.

Highway A construction

The fractured county Highway A is coming together nicely, Department of Transportation Project Supervisor Bill Oliva said.

"Our plans are to have Highway A open to traffic in December," Oliva said. "And we are on schedule."

The state took over jurisdiction of the highway about a week after the lake drained. Once the work is complete, the road will be returned to Sauk County.

The coffer dam in front of the Highway A breach repair was started July 24, eight days after the project was presented to the public.

After remnants of old houses around the work site were removed, work on the coffer dam was completed by James Thieding Construction, and was finished by the middle of August, Oliva said.

The dam was completed quickly because the state wanted to preserve the breach site from further damage by the elements. The coffer dam stopped the creek from flowing through the site, but some water is still getting through.

The coffer dam is centered with steel pilings, which are surrounded by rock aggregate, and cost about $1.08 million to build.

Hoffman Construction began the $3.61 million Highway A project on Sept. 8, and is now working 20-hour days to have the road opened before winter sets in, Oliva said.

So far, road work has consisted of excavating the site and preparing it for work, and hauling in dirt for the road and embankment re-construction.

The dirt is being compacted right now, and once the embankment is built, the road can be completed on top of it.

Eighty percent of the funding for the project is coming from the federal government, and the remaining 20 percent is being supplied by the state.

Fishery restoration

A projected three-year project, the Lake Delton Fisheries Restoration Project has gotten off to a somewhat slow start.

Ben Hobbins, president and CEO of Lake Resources Group; TV and radio personality Dan Small; and village trustee and former Department of Natural Resources fish management staff specialist Gordy Priegel are heading the project.

Priegel said he is only aware of one donation so far, a $200 gift from the Sauk County Sportsman's Alliance for a fish habitat. The Web site www.restorelakedeltonfisheries.com was established to help accept donations, but few are coming in.

The costs of minnows and fingerling fish for the lake will be about $180,000 over three years, Priegel said. Each walleye spawning area would be about $2,000.

The lake did not previously have walleye spawning sites, so walleyes were restocked every year by the state. Priegel said they would like to have spawning sites because there is no guarantee the state will continue to provide walleye for the lake every year.

The state has decided to cut off the top three feet of the coffer dam and leave the rest for fish habitat when work on Highway A is complete, Oliva said.

The village is also leaving a rock access road that was built between the highway and the coffer dam to be used as a reef, Priegel said.

The first step in the project, besides continuing to raise funds, will be to chemically treat the carp and other fish that are left in the lake bed when the dam and Mirror Lake Dam are closed in December.

The chemical used on the fish is designed to kill only fish and will be detoxified with the waters that refill the lake, Priegel said.

Next spring, about 3 million flathead, golden shiner and sucker fry minnows will be put in the lake.

Late next summer or early fall, the game and pan fish will be reincorporated into Lake Delton. Walleye, large- and small-mouth bass, channel catfish, blue gill and crappies will be bought, Priegel said.

They aren't planning on buying any northern pike, however, because many anglers who fished the lake didn't particularly care for them and their predatory ways.

Because of fish viruses, the restoration project won't be able to stock the white and yellow bass that were in the lake before.

Project leaders should know by the end of the year, Priegel said, how much money they will receive from the village's tax increment financing districts.

Lake vegetation removal

One of the lake projects that has hit a major snag is the lake bed vegetation removal project.

Josh Britton of Aquatic Engineering, who is in charge of the project, had to come before the village board Sept. 29 and ask for more money.

The vegetation removal project was originally capped at $115,000, but was raised to $210,000 after the DNR denied the village's permits to chemically treat weeds around the creek.

Those weeds will be mown down once the lake freezes in late October or early November.

The lake, Britton said, has three make-ups right now: dry and sparsely populated with vegetation, dry and densely populated, and wet and densely populated.

The chemical treatment on the lake bed was completed in September.

Aquatic Engineering workers treated 60 to 80 acres in the dry, sparse areas and another 85 to 90 acres in the dry, dense areas, Britton said.

The remainder of the 261-acre lake is wet, and must be mown down, per the DNR's requirement.

Workers are building the specialized equipment that will be needed to complete the mowing that will start in a couple of weeks.

What is done with the weeds is up to the village, Britton said, but they probably be composted or burned.