WPKY reported on Newcom's update to the Pennyrile Area Development District. Newcom said that the creation of a cofferdam is under way which will surround the breach and sinkhole, and allow for a rebuild of the levee to take place after it was breached in the spring of 2022.
One complication in the process has been the need for more than 1900 truckloads of gravel and dirt being transported on single-lane county roads that were not designed to handle so much weight and traffic. He said contractors and engineers are working on that situation, as well as planning for the dam's reconstruction itself.
Engineers also recognized the need to widen the work area on the dam to pull out wet materials that were settling back into the lake bed.
During the sudden lack of water from Lake George, the city of Marion had emergency water supplied by the Crittenden/Livingston Water District. Newcom said that utility's capacity must be increased to handle any future requests from Marion, as well as increasing needs for its existing clients. He said Webster County is still supplying 30,000 gallons a day to ease the Crittenden/Livingston load.
But he said expansion of the Crittenden/Livingston water system will take at least five to seven years, due to the time needed for budget and grant applications, and then the long path of legislating and voting in Frankfort.
Another concern is that Marion's aged water treatment facility has had to run 24 hours a day, which he called an unsustainable rate.
Marion continues to draw from its own City Lake and the much reduced capacity of Lake George. Those reservoirs depend mostly on local rainfall, which just happened to be in very short supply during the first several months of the water crisis.
(File photo of 2022 sinkhole and breach of Lake George)
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