Ice shoves from a long and bitterly cold season have damaged at least two of the four cement boat landings on Shawano Lake that are operated by Shawano County.
“They’re pretty banged up,” said Keith Marquardt, county parks director. “Each one is about 15 feet long and 10 feet wide, and they were pushed up by the ice onto the shore and damaged the blacktop. One will have to be replaced for sure. We might be able to push the other one back into the water, but we’d still need to repair the blacktop area.”
Each pad costs about $25,000.
The landings are installed by the county highway department. Marquardt said they’ll have a better understanding of the damage once the ice melts completely.
Marquardt said he’s been at the park since 2009 and has never witnessed damage like this before.
Damage to lakefront property due to ice shoves is common.
According to Shawano Area Waterways Management, a majority of Shawano Lake’s shoreline damage typically occurs in the coldest part of winter when the ice is cracking, the joints fill with water and refreeze — thus expanding.
“Some years we do not get a deep frost as is typical for Wisconsin winters,” according to the SAWM website. “As a result, instead of the ice riding up the frozen ground, it was able to plow into the shoreline more easily. In addition, the land temperature causes the water near shore to freeze last and thaw first, causing a huge, very heavy, floating ice sheet on the lake. The bigger the lake, the more force the wind can apply to push this heavy mass of ice toward the shore.”
Shawano Lake is a 6,200-acre body of water.
Marquardt said another contributing cause is when boaters use the boat’s motor to propel the boat on or off their trailer. The action can lead to erosion under the landings. When that freezes, it can create additional pressure that pushes the landings up on shore.
He said highway crews will investigate this possibility and may consider adding fill under the landings after the boating season but before the winter season.
Marquardt said he hopes to have the damage to the boat landings fixed by the beginning of the inland sport fishing season, which starts May 2, but it will be up to Mother Nature.
“It’ll depend on when the ice goes out, so we can get a good look at how much damage,” he said.
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
