April 15, 2023
Sherry Lynn Gros, member class HPca, for The Highland Park Review
“I’ve heard there’s some good fishing at Lake Optimist.”
EROSION is the most immediate threat to Lake Optimist at Milkhouse Creek than Putin, Politics, or the HOA People combined. When Allen talks about part of his “plan” being for the creek bank owners to stop the erosion from their lands and for them to pay for the costs to stop the erosion of their own volition, the plan begins to fall apart. This idea would require an up-to-date survey to see for sure who owns what lands. Once the land boundaries are established then Memorandums of Understandings (MOUs which I talked about with you all 5 years ago) would need to be signed in agreement with those landowners that their lands would siltate the waters or erode into the Milkhouse Creek no more. This would require negotiations, contracts, and diplomats between HPca and the landowners along Milkhouse Creek. The list of Creekside owners with eroding banks would include for starters: all Creekside property owners upstream the head of the reservoir land, all lakeside subdivision owners, all Highland Park lakeside owners and possibly all Creekside owners as far up the creek as Zeigler who are determined by the USG or like to be having erosion into Milkhouse Creek. Allen Helms proposed plan does not have the nuts and bolts required to present to the necessary people to rebuild this dam to create a reservoir and the concern is the filling of the lake and the uncertainty of what kind of management of the reservoir comes afterword. We need the lake and wetlands management plan to be constructed with a firm footing before a dam can ever be built for it to stand strong for 100 years. Without a strong management plan future constructions will continue to be repeated disasters. Best to leave it as it is from a wildlife perspective. The wildlife can manage the creek on their terms safely; unlike if it is filled without a lake management plan(LMP); an LMP that requires oversight with authority to date which has been sorely lacking. HPca is the landowner and the rightful authority over the land in question. HPca lands require a survey with a “subject matter” knowledgeable team of member class people to manage it. Support the grant effort. It’s our only hope of restoration. https://gofund.me/bb783fec