Grand Lake St. Mary's -
Grand Lake Saint Mary's got a make-over today with the help of Dominion for their annual "Putting our Energy into the Environment" program. It was a cold rainy day but that didn't keep volunteer dominion workers from helping expand the area beach at windy point on St. Mary's lake.
Dominion External Affairs Manager, Peggy Ehora says, "The issues are very unique to grand lake saint Mary's so this just felt like the right fit for us this year to pick an environmental day and environmental project and come and see what we could do to help the lake."
The volunteers work tirelessly to complete the project in a single day. They were busy pulling out almost a dozen trees, removing boulders from the shore line, and a lot of manual labor along with the use of heavy machinery.
Dominion worker Leslie Rupert says, "We're trying to get rid of some of the debris along the lake, the big rocks and trees and so forth and helping to get this water that is sitting here and try and get it back in the lake and make an improvement."
After today's construction the beach will be tripled in size and is expected to bring in many more beach goers.
Grand Lake St. Mary's restoration manager Milton Miller is very appreciative of the time and work these volunteers have donated. Without them he doesn't think it would have been possible without them."
Miller says, "Now that we're into it we would have had to try to raise a lot more money than we had anticipated because it's involving a lot more work than we thought."
With the new 70 foot section cleared a total of about 200 tons of sand will be brought in and raked to complete the finishing touches on the beach and should be ready for the community to use next summer.
