Potential trouble for Ore B gone

[MAXFACTOR]

Well I have been up there several times in the last two weeks.  The water level is the lowest I've seen.  I did get a chance to visit at the City Council meeting on Tues, and visited with both the public works people, the Chief of Police, and also several members of the fire dept. the night before.

Here is the situation: 
Mining operations are pumping from one of the pits to facilitate there operations with water pressure.  Unfortunately, for Ore-B-Gone, the water in it flows into the other pit.  Thus, as one is lowered, by default Ore B Gone goes lower.  (YOU"LL ALL REMEMBER THE  DISCUSSION ABOUT WHERE DOES WATER FLOW)  :  hint  from highest to lowest

They are in the process of talking about deverting the water back and or "reclaiming the used water"  by  activating a setimentation pool or collection area, and then pumping it back into OBG.

I walked the beach and it does not appear to be to difficult to get in and out of. 

The Chief, and the City council are concerned because they don't want any swimmers and boaters getting hurt by the lower levels.  As a reminder, most of us divers can't get to the 300 ft. depths anyway.  It will still be a great dive. 

PS the water was actually not cold.  All ICE IS OUT OF COURSE>
There are several other great dive sites up there as well.  All of the sunk treasures that Rick and crew did with Tall Pine, are still great dive sites. 

Also, the city is looking into dredging some of the exposed sand and rock back and dumping some nice sand there to make it quite nice.  As the city worker said, this may be a great opportunity to fix and repair the beach before the water level gets back up. 

Also,  the Chief of Police told me that they just ordered up some great dive signs to inform the boaters and swimmers about the Scuba Divers.  Remember we've all seen boaters ....boat up to our dive flags, and say,  oh,  whats going on,  All this with the boat engine running.  The signs are a continuing effort to educate the public.

All in all.... it is still one of the best diving sites in MN.  Well worth the drive, and the entertainment. 
Happy Diving this summer.

Maxfactor

[MAXFACTOR]

Thanks a lot CHUCK

[innerspace]

My worry is that the water movement will affect visibility.  we know that there are some areas of OBG that suffer worse vis than others, and there could be some mixing of this water with the clearer areas as the lake level continues to drop, or the disturbance of bottom sediment caused by the "reclaimed" water being re-introduced into the lake. 

I don't suppose that anyone (nerdy individuals such as myself, DNR, interested others) has secchi disk () data?  Maybe we could start.  I think that OBG brings money into Gilbert's coffers so if we could present some information that might suggest this activity would cause divers to travel and spend elsewhere perhaps we could help preserve a cool diving site.

Hopefully, vis won't be affected and the trees won't start poking through the surface anytime soon!

May all your dives be as warm and clear as the pool you learned to dive in!

[LKunze]

I've wondered about this as well.  It seems the viz at Ore Be Gone has been getting worse in the past 4 or 5 years.  I've opted to do more dives over at Lake Mine and St. James the past couple years because of this.