North Park Lake Restoration Complete

A two-year effort to pull sediment buildup from North Park Lake is drawing to a close.

The lake had been just two feet deep in some areas when Allegheny County and the Army Corps of Engineers began the dredging project in 2009.

Army Corps Project Manager Craig Carney says crews removed more than 300,000 cubic yards of sediment – enough to fill Heinz Field to 180 feet.

Carney says when the lake is refilled with water in about a month, it will be twice as deep as it was two years ago, ranging from five to twenty feet. He says the Fish and Boat Commission has started stocking the lake.

“They actually transferred some fish from Hereford Manor Lake, which is up in Beaver County, down about a month ago,” says Carney, “and they are going to start putting fingerlings in within the next month or two. And we’ll do a full stocking, I believe, next winter/springtime for trout.”

Carney says most of the sediment will remain within North Park, on a former strip mine site that will be transformed into a field. Sediment was also sent to a landfill in Evans City and to a site on Babcock Boulevard.

The deadline was extended about a month to allow the County time to construct a new boat-ramp in on the Irwin Run side of the lake.

A festival at the lake this Saturday will mark the completion of the project.