Lakestide Marina moved

Rising water levels on the Jamestown Reservoir have led to the temporary relocation of the Lakeside Marina.

“The projected water level is supposed to increase to the point where we would be in danger of flooding,” said Mike Kesler, Lakeside Marina manager.

Lakeside Maria, located at 3225 E. Lakeside Rd. was moved about three blocks to higher ground on Friday morning, Kesler said.

Kesler spent two-and-a-half days evacuating the marina’s equipment, gear, inventory, shelves and counters, he said.

After that, Glaesman Moving was able to physically relocate the marina building, marina docks, the bait house and a fueling station, Kesler said.

“It is a vacated area,” he said.

Dennis Lorenz, Stuts-man County Parks superintendent, said Glaesman Moving had the building off the ground at 6 p.m. Thursday and relocated the next morning by 8:30.

Lorenz said he contacted two companies to see who could move the building first.

“Denny called and said it was an urgent thing so that’s why we went,” said Dean Glaesman, owner of Glaesman Moving.

It took seven hours to get the building off the ground and loaded on to a trailer, Glaesman said.

First the building was loosened from its foundation and lifted a foot into the air with 15 mechanical lifts, he said.

Next they slid in wood beams along the base horizontally, raised it another two feet to place steel beams vertically underneath the building, they then used a hydraulic system to raise it another three feet and finally loaded it onto a trailer, Glaesman said.

Lorenz said they moved the marina to land east of the Lakeside Marina Campground, after he got permission from the owner.

Now that the buildings are relocated there is another task at hand, deciding whether or not to move them to a new location once water recedes or move them back to the old location, Lorenz said.

He said there will be some time before that decision is made.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers offered advice on the relocation, and the Bureau of Reclamation, Stutsman County Park Board and Stutsman County Commission made the decision to move it, Kesler said.

On a normal year, Kesler would be getting pontoon boats ready for rentals, while boat dealers would be testing and running boats on the reservoir. Not this year, he said.

Lorenz said they were considering two options with the marina, either diking around it or relocating it.

There is three feet of ice on the reservoir and if there was a northeast wind that ice could blow across and destroy any made dike, Lorenz said.

Lorenz recalls having to dike the marina in the spring of either 1996 or 1997 and then having to redike it in the summer.

“We kept the water out but there was no ice,” he said.

Kesler said the rising water levels are a sticky situation.

“It’s going to be a double-edged sword. There’s going to be a lot more water to play with, but its going to be tough to serve those people without the facilities there,” Kesler said.

Sun reporter Ben Rodgers can be reached at 701-952-8455 or by e-mail at brodgers@jamestownsun.com

Tags: news, flood, lake, marina