Volunteers used a mini excavator and skidloader to make repairs to the Cox Bridge parking lot at the Carlyle Lake State Fish and Wildlife area in Vandalia. Volunteers from the Carlyle Waterfowlers Association, Mississippi Valley Duck Hunters of Illinois and the Delta Waterfowl Carlyle Lake Chapter took time out of their weekend on Saturday, Oct. 11, to do necessary repairs to the Cox Bridge parking lot.
There were around 10 volunteers doing the work. They spent about eight hours doing the improvements.
Cox Bridge is located in the Carlyle Lake State Fish and Wildlife area in Vandalia.
"The three groups working together are a major improvement and without all three working together these improvements are harder to accomplish," Carlyle Waterfowlers Association president Vince Deichmann said. "It is a major improvement just being able to bring all three groups together."
The boat ramp at Cox Bridge is retained by the state of Illinois. A few years ago when the US Army Corps of Engineers did a bunch of work and were using the ramp, the state had told them not to mess with anything because they were going to replace the ramp with an improved ramp area that would be more accessible during high water.
For several years when it would flood and the water would go down, the state would go down there and scrape the mud off and push it off to the side of the parking lot area. After several years of that, the area of the ramp was being encroached upon where they would push the mud.
People were unable to get down there and pull a truck and a boat in and straighten it out to use the ramp the way they used to be able to.
The Carlyle Lake Waterfowlers Association, Delta Waterfowl Carlyle Lake chapter and the Mississippi Valley Duck Hunters out of Belleville all came together, pitched in money, and reclaimed the area. They installed some culverts and 300 tons of rock.
"We made huge improvements," Deichmann said.
They cleaned up the handicap access ramp that was overgrown with trees and the concrete was covered up, and restored the ramp back to the way it originally was.
They made the parking lot ramp usable again.
On Oct. 15, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called The Carlyle Waterfowlers Association and said due to the government shutdown, they were running out of fuel for pumping up the wetland areas for waterfowl hunting.
Deichmann contacted Huels Oil and they were able to donate 500 gallons of fuel to the Army Corps of Engineers through the use of a 501c3 application that was provided through Delta Waterfowl Carlyle Lake Chapter. With that, they were able to keep the pumps running to place water for the waterfowl areas.
"There are a lot of struggles for the waterfowling community here, but we seem to overcome them still," Deichmann said.
They spent about $2,500 on the boat ramp improvement and the three groups split the cost fairly evenly. The Carlyle Lake Waterfowlers Association did provide equipment and they used a mini excavator and a skidloader to do the work in the area.
"Even the Army Corps of Engineers was shocked that the state never volunteered one load of rock and not one piece of culvert," Deichmann said.
The groups also will be putting in solar lights in parking lots 1, 2 and 3 at the state fish and wildlife area. The groups provided the batteries, manpower and poles and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources provided the materials such as the switches, wiring and the solar panels to charge the batteries. The volunteer group set the poles, made the brackets, and purchased the batteries for the solar lights.
