Leaders of the Shell Rock River Watershed District and several local entities on Wednesday asked members of the Minnesota Senate Capital Investment Committee to fund $7.5 million in bonding funds to dredge Fountain Lake.

The request from the city and watershed district came in the middle of a committee tour of the state to review improvement projects eligible for bonding money.

Shell Rock River Watershed District Administrator Brett Behnke said the $7.5 million request would be half of the project’s estimated cost of $15 million. It would include dredging an estimated 1 million cubic yards of sediment, taking the lake from between 5 and 10 feet in depth to a minimum of 12 feet.

Presenting the request in the gazebo of Fountain Lake Park, Behnke stressed the importance of the more-than-550-acre Fountain Lake to the community of Albert Lea. He said the lake has become central to the city’s tourism industry and identity. He added the community is proud to be known as the Land Between the Lakes, because of its location between Fountain Lake and Albert Lea Lake.

Costs included in the project would be project engineering and design, sediment and dredging disposal, construction administration and acquisition of land for sediment disposal.

Behnke said the sediment is in the lake largely because of channelization, erosion, field runoff and street runoff.

The dredging project would be a major project by the watershed district, the city and other local partners to reduce the sediment that reaches Fountain Lake from upstream tributaries, he said. It would come in coordination with other recent projects aimed at increasing water quality, including the installation of rock dams and filter strips on agricultural lands, steam bank stabilization and the installation of fish barriers at various locations.

He said the dredging would be completed through a hydraulic dredging system, which includes the use of suction pumps and piping for removing and pumping out the dredged material to a disposal site.

Watershed board member Gary Pestorious said when people come to Minnesota from Iowa, the first lake they’re going to look at is Albert Lea Lake.

“We think that’s a huge factor here, and that we qualify for these funds,” Pestorious said.

The dredging project would not be the first for Fountain Lake in its history. Between 1940 and 1942, the city of Albert Lea dredged about 1.8 million cubic yards of sediment from the main bay of the lake to improve recreation, and beginning in 1962, Dane’s Bay and Edgewater Bay were dredged.

Senators asked what the sediment is made of and how it got into the lake. They also asked if the project could be phased.

In attendance to support the request were representatives from Albert Lea, Freeborn County, the Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce, the Albert Lea Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Lakes Foundation, the Fountain Lake Sportsmen’s Club and the Shell Rock River Watershed District.

The Capital Investment Committee tours the state every two years to see requests; traditionally, most bonding allocations are made during the second year of a legislative biennium, which begins February of 2010.

Albert Lea Mayor Mike Murtaugh said he thinks the dredging project will get the lake back to the point it should be at, though some of the smaller projects have already appeared to have an impact on water quality.

He said he’s never seen Fountain Lake as clear as it has been recently.

District 27 Sen. Dan Sparks said he was pleased with the turnout to hear the project.

“This is a starting point,” he said.

He noted the presentation went over well and that there were between 18 and 20 senators in attendance to hear the request.

After hearing the Albert Lea request, the senators also heard a request for updates to the Sargeant Community Center in the amount of $100,000 and a request for public housing rehabilitation from the Housing Finance Agency and the Albert Lea Housing & Redevelopment Authority.

Behnke thanked the committee for its recent support in funding for the North Edgewater Park cleanup site.