President’s Corner – November 2012

On 11/16/12, two Board Members, Tim O’Donnell and Rick Rumbaugh, began their trip to Wisconsin to pick up the new weed harvester.  They volunteered to make the 14 hour trip (one way) to save the Association some $4500 in shipping charges.  They deserve a lot of credit for taking the time and making this effort for the community.  Thank you, Tim and Rick!

Work continues on the rebuilding of the beach 2 and the Sunset Park pavilions.  Al Rubosky and his students are progressing nicely.

The purchase of the Manzo property has been delayed because of title issues uncovered by the title company.  We hope to have this resolved in the near future.

Normally, I do my best to keep politics out of the “President’s Corner” because I believe the President’s Corner is a means to inform our members of the actions of the Board of Directors and the current status of our various projects.  However, I feel compelled to in this case.

At the OLCA meeting at Lakengren, Rick Gainar, Gary Stamm and I were discussing the mechanical dredging project together with the dredging supervisor.  We were asking him questions and we all listened carefully to his answers.

In the October Board meeting, Mr. Gainar was explaining to the members what he learned from attending that OLCA meeting at Lakengren. There were only approximately 25 members in attendance at our Board Meeting.  He gave his report which was correct as far as describing the system they are now using (Mechanical Dredging) and that they had tried hydraulic dredging with an old dredger that followed cables which were suspended from one side of the lake to the other, and decided that it was too costly to maintain. (We never planned to use that type of dredger, our judgment was that it would not work on our lake) He also gave an accurate description of the capital costs (approximately $84,000) of the mechanical system they are now using. Their goal was to remove 100 tons of sludge per day with their existing system which included four (4) people.

He forgot to mention that they were using this system on a very small lake (5 acres at most) and the distance from the excavator to the point of removing the sludge from the barge to the tilt bed truck was approximately 200 feet.  Using this system on a 500 acre lake like ours will markedly increase the need for more barges ,more work boats, more tilt bed trucks and most importantly, more operators (men) to move the sludge a greater distance.  To accomplish the same rate of sludge removal (100 tons per day) in our lake would conservatively add a minimum of 3 additional work boat operators and one additional tilt bed truck driver, making a total of 7people. Assuming $20.00 per hour wage rate with 7 people for an 8 hour day to remove 100 tons of sludge, the cost is $11.20/ ton.

Hydraulic Dredging will use 2 operators at the same wage rate for 2 hours and it will remove the same 100 tons.  The cost for hydraulic dredging is (2 x 20 x 2)/100 = $0.80/ ton.  Note: the hydraulic dredger has a capacity of 800 tons per day.

There are presently 345,000 tons of sludge (not to mention the 20,000 tons that enter the lake yearly) currently in the lake.  Would you rather spend a total of $3,864,000 to remove the sludge mechanically or $276,000 to remove it hydraulically?

I believe, once again, that the board has made the correct decision in choosing hydraulic dredging.

Holidays are rapidly approaching.  The Board of Directors, Pat and Jen, and the maintenance staff wish all of you a happy and safe holiday season.

As of the end of October, the Projected Cash Flow Report indicates the following year end financial numbers:

Barry O’Connell, President

RRA Board of Directors