Grew up in DePue after my Dad died. Mom would tell us all kinds of stories about the lake and the fun she had when a youngster. We grew up on and in the Lake as kids.
The Lake is actually just that a Lake. It does have a passage out to the Illinois River, but was not considered a back water of the river as some might think of it now. It is spring fed, and when you think about this, you might have been in the water and felt a cold circulation of water come by. This would have been a sping that might have been uncovered during the week of activities at the lake.
Bud used to come to DePue and pull ice chunks out of the lake for that yellow stuff, no, not the yellow snow!!! That is how pure the water once was from the Lake.
I remember as a kid, on Labor Day Weekend, the Chicago Outboard Club used to have races on that weekend. There was always an armada of boats just off the first turn, which came in from the Illinois River passage into the Lake.
Now the lake only accessible from the river if the water is way up because of the silting in of the lake. We were always as kids able to access the river from the lake and now as I understand it, the kayaks were getting stuck last year at the mouth.
The issues for the lake are really the topsoil issues that flow into the lake and then the back up of all the water from the river during flooding which then lays down the silt when the water begins to recede. This was really enchanced when the Creek at the east end of the lake began to flow into the lake dropping thousands of pounds of top soil into the lake.
The pollution problems have been identified as the tailings of the heavy metal and have been in the water, but even heavier in the silt at the bottom of the lake. This is dangerous to the community and to the use of the lake. It is an absolute shame that this continues from the days of the Lake Depue Preservation Association efforts with the Mayor Don Bosnich's Dad as the leader. His group brought great identity to the lake and the clean up. Now with Steve Solario/Eric Bryant and the Men's Club carrying the torch, hopefull something can be done.
I rememer Bobby Viera from Oakland, Ca coming in after dumping a hydro and when he pulled his helmet off, the whole side of his face was mud, with the inside of the helmet full of the muck. Alan Ishii went upside down on the backstrech thowing up a mud tail the whole way.
We need to do everything we can to contact the EPA and our elected officials to get this moving. What a disaster for the people of DePue if this is not cleaned up, never mind the boatracing.
Ray
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