Fishing Club to hold meeting about dam

The Fulton Fishing Club brought an engineer to Glover Spring Lake - located near state Route UU on County Road 101 - last week to inspect the damage to a dam that overflowed Aug. 3.
"He (the engineer) said that the spillways looked good, the dam that was left was still in good shape and said it wouldn't be a huge deal to fix it," said Vance Vaughan, president of the Fulton Fishing Club. "I don't know if we'll even rebuild it, but he seemed to think that it was doable. This is something the whole club has to be involved with to make a decision."
The decision about what to specifically do about the dam will be voted on at an emergency meeting of the Fulton Fishing Club on Sept. 4. Because the dam at Glover Spring Lake is privately owned, the Fulton Fishing Club has to take up all of the cost of construction. The club usually holds one annual meeting in June.
"We've got half of our members who haven't paid their dues yet," Vaughan said. "I don't know what will happen. I don't know if a simple majority vote would be enough to go through; everybody needs to be on board. Even if we decided to do something like tear it down to restore it to a creek, it would still cost us money."
Randall Kleindienst, Callaway County Eastern District commissioner, was also at the dam Aug. 11, the same day as the engineer.
"From what I saw, it looks like something could be repaired at a reasonable fee, and the engineer had the same opinion," Kleindienst said. "The material that was used in the original dam (clay) was the best material that you could get in this part of the country, and that's why the dam is still standing at all. So they've got something good to work with. If they have a place to get the dirt, it can be fixed."
Vaughan said the engineer estimated the cost to repair the dam could be $30,000 but hasn't had an excavating contract make a bid yet.
"I would hesitate to put a price on it at this point because you never know what you could run into, more rain, etc.," Kleindienst said.
The county is also planning on reopening the approaches - parts of a road that lead up to the bridge near the dam - as early as next week.
"We were in waiting to see what they (the Fishing Club) were going to do. We did see that the dam is not going to give unless we get another 10-inch rain. If all things are normal, we think the dam would be OK to get our road fixed," Kleindienst said. "We have two other projects that we're finishing up before we get there. As soon as we're done with that, we'll get this done. It could be next week, depending on the weather."
Vaughan said he is preparing for the meeting and said the whole process is long.
"It's a slow-moving thing," Vaughan said. "I have to get bids together before the membership meeting. I've called some local contractors. It's hard to get someone to get a look at it right now and get a bid."