Following the decision by the Mitchell City Council last week to not approve a loan application for the Lake Mitchell project, a Mitchell man says he has come up with an idea on how to clean the algae-ridden lake. Jordan Hanson will give his Lake Mitchell presentation on Thursday at noon at The Collective located at 316 North Main Street. Hanson says he believes the wrong people have been consulted regarding the lake. “In my opinion, they hired engineers to do a biologist’s job, and I wouldn’t expect a biologist to ever do an engineer’s job,” Hanson said. “An engineer should do mechanical things and obviously projects of that nature. But when you’re dealing with life, which is what our lake is, I mean, you’re talking about aquatic life and vegetative life inside and outside of our lake, you need a biologist’s approach. You wouldn’t ask a biologist to test a bridge design for you, so I don’t know why we’re asking an engineer to fix a biological body of water. ”
Hanson says he consulted with an aquatic biologist – Matt Rayl of Indiana. “He’s one of the top 10 aquatic biologists in the country,” said Hanson. “I talked to him for about 45 minutes on the phone. We chatted, and I said ‘well hey this is kind of what I’ve read and what you’ve said…do you think this will work?’ And he said ‘yep, that would be the first thing that I would do.'” Hanson will unveil the plan he proposed to Rayl at Thursday’s presentation.
The loan application defeated by the Mitchell City Council was for $25 million at 3.25% interest. There would also be annual treatment costs of $500,000. Hanson says his plan would cost less than a million dollars.
Thursday’s presentation is open to the public. It will also be live streamed on the Mitchell 911 Facebook page.