Okoboji's choice: Wait for major floods, or build a new bridge

• Arnold Garson, a former managing editor of the Register, first posted this essay on his Substack, Second Thoughts.

The Okoboji area is Iowa’s largest tourism attraction.

Summer tourism spending in the area comes close to $300 million every year. The number of visitors each weekend of the summer ranges from 40,000 to 60,000 in a typical year.

Dickinson County, the home of the lakes, also has some of the fastest-growing small towns in the state and has been an ongoing beehive of new construction for years.

It is one of the few places in the state that has a national reputation as a vacation destination.

Yet the state of Iowa and regional officeholders have ignored a huge annual risk to all of that economic activity for more than 30 years.

It was 1993 when the Okoboji summer ground almost to a halt as a result of flooding that began with torrential rains in June and extended into August. Boating activity in the lake dropped to around zero with the imposition of a mandatory no-wake speed limit of 5 mph. Homes and businesses were flooded and damaged. The shorelines eroded as banks collapsed and fell into the lake. Docks, at risk of collapsing into the lake, had to be removed, further limiting fishing and lake access. Debris from damaged docks and lakeshore structures became strewn through the lakes, posing a water hazard for boats and skiers that was expensive to mitigate.

Total damage was estimated at $39 million, the equivalent of about $84 million today. This does not include the cost of lost tourism and dining revenues.

It was said to be a once-in-80-years flood at the time, but the frequency rate improved a bit after a few changes were made to slightly reduce the impact of such flooding.

During the 30-plus years since that time, there have been repeated studies and meetings involving an alphabet soup of local, state, and federal agencies. They discussed and debated. They argued and wrung their hands. Only one certainty emerged.

There will be another flood that will once again threaten tourism, inconvenience residents, and drive tens of millions of dollars in damages.

Meanwhile, there were two other realities throughout the 30-plus years of discussion that seem to have been totally ignored:

• One was global warming, which has greatly increased the likelihood and frequency of weather extremes, including flooding.
• The other is that no serious discussion or planning was done to achieve the one thing that would be virtually certain to greatly reduce the impact of the heavy, continuing rains that periodically produce heavy flooding in the Okoboji area.

It is relatively simple: Find a way to significantly increase the speed with which the water level can be reduced in the Lakes area when such rains do occur.

The water level of the lakes can be quickly reduced by opening the impediment to southward flow into Milford Creek at the south end of Lower Gar Lake, the southernmost lake in the Iowa Great Lakes chain.

That opening for years has been restricted by the bridge over 230th Avenue that functions as a dam.

There may be various ways to increase the water flow somewhat: more culverts or larger culverts that can be opened or closed as needed.

But the real solution is to tear out that bridge and build a bigger one that will allow a greater flow when needed. You can see new, bigger bridges being built on highways throughout the state of Iowa every year. On the interstates and state highways. In and around cities. On county roads. Some of them appear to be in places where the need seems minimal.

Why hasn’t it happened at a place where the need is enormous?

Every state and local government official in Dickinson County who is in a position to influence this decision ought to be on board in making this happen.

On board or out of office.

Arnold Garson, a former managing editor of the Register, first posted this essay on his Substack, Second Thoughts, a part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative.