Our Place
The Lake Geneva beach wall.
Lake Geneva City Hall wants the public to believe that the beach erosion they are correcting with the proposed “Ugly Wall” they want to build is caused by lake effects, but the real cause is storm water run-off from the Library Park sidewalk directed up from, and pouring water down onto, the beach. How do we know this? Because all the ground around the lake on every side slopes into the lake, not away from it, and that includes the angle of the ground in Library Park.
Because the wind that occasionally blows across the water does not gather enough ‘fetch’ to build large waves that would cause real erosion of much of anything, it’s not the lake water creating the runoff problem. Those waves do erode parts of BigFoot Beach, because of its angle to the wind’s approach, and because the road, and the inadequate shore there, creates a vertical barrier. There’s no such barrier along the Lake Geneva Beach, and hence there’s very little or no erosion from the lake side itself. No wall is going to correct the erosion that currently does exist, because the erosion is caused by water flowing from higher ground to lower ground. Only drains could take care of that problem, and if the ugly wall is built then more money is going to have to be allotted for drains to the already bloated budget for the wall itself. The best solution is no wall at all, and no expansion of the beach. The revenue from the beach is a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year, in a good weather (summer) year. The old expression “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” comes to mind.
Person of the Week
Go to this stand! You will be amazed. McDarmitch Farm Stand is at Lake Geneva’s Farmers Market. Running the stand with great enthusiasm for her produce is Darlene Considine. Darlene presents a display of flowers and homegrown fruits and vegetables that is as wonderfully fresh as the goods are organic. Be sure to stop by the McDarmitch Farm Stand at the Lake Geneva Farmers Market on Thursdays. You won’t be disappointed in what you get, whether in product or meeting and enjoying Darlene.
