CARSON
PARK FACTS
• Donated to city in 1914 by heirs to lumber baron
William Carson
• 134-acre peninsula nearly surrounded by Half
Moon Lake
• Carson Park baseball stadium was added to the
National Register of Historic Places in 2003
• Major league baseball greats such as Hank Aaron,
Joe Torre, and Bob Uecker have all played in
Carson Park
• Home to both the Paul Bunyan Logging Camp
Museum and the Chippewa Valley Museum
• One-half mile rideable miniature railway operates
in the park
Sources: cvmuseum.com, visiteauclaire.com
Dan Sydow was an excellent project
manager and kept things moving on
the Ayres side. We knew this was going
to be a rather complex process for the
permitting and getting all the approvals
– that was known from the get-go and
expressed from Day One – and Dan, in a
very business-like manner, just kept the
ball rolling in a very steady, deliberate,
and straightforward manner.
- Dave Solberg, City Engineer, City of Eau Claire
10│ TRENDS
“They wanted us to put in some tree drops – basically
dead trees. The idea was to anchor them into the
embankment and submerge them in the water just
below the surface so that fish can come up and hide in
there,” Sydow said. “That makes good fish habitat.”
Poor water quality in the lake was another challenge
to address. Both sides of the lake had issues, but
one was worse than the other. Ayres recommended
increasing the bridge opening and adding extra culvert
pipes to facilitate a greater exchange of water flow
between the two areas.
Before the bridge closed for construction, additional
measures were taken to keep the public informed
and minimize impacts to some of the disadvantaged
populations living nearby. A tri-lingual project
website and flyer was developed in Hmong, English,
and Spanish as part of this process, something not
standardly done for DOT projects but important for
this project to make sure those used to accessing
Carson Park at this entrance were fully aware of what
was going to happen, when the bridge closure would
occur, and how long it would last.
Placing fill in the lake to widen the causeway was no
small undertaking either. Nearly 11,000 cubic yards of
soft and contaminated lakebed sediment – up to 9 feet
thick in places – was removed and replaced with more
than 30,000 cubic yards of new material.
“That was probably one of the bigger engineering
challenges – calculating how much we needed to
take out of there, figuring out what kind of material
should go in, and then working with the regulators
to determine what to do with the disposal material,”
Sydow said, noting that the City was a partner in
that effort, creating a disposal spot at its wastewater
treatment plant, which saved time and money. Taking
the material to a landfill would’ve been much more
costly.
Of all the project complexities involved in
the project, the biggest from an environmental
permitting perspective was the issue of disposing the
contaminated lake sediment for the widening of the
causeway, Willger said.
“It took a lot of coordination between all parties
involved, but, in the end, the project was completed
in an environmentally sound way that met all the
relevant state standards,” he said. “The partnerships
between the consultants, the City of Eau Claire,
WisDOT, the contractor, and the Wisconsin DNR was
exceptional, and everyone stepped up to do the right
thing and create the best possible project.”
Ultimately, designers were able to more than triple
the footprint of the causeway – making room for bike