Yes, it's a possibility.
It won't be a Wausau but it'll be whitewater. I've attached our concept of what the course may look like. CF has said they need new gates. They could put in the inverted V-gates that the other course use. We'd like to butt-up to the second pier somehow and start experimenting with the course design this spring.
Don Sorenson from MN said at Wausau they just moved the rock pile around
until they got the flow to do what they wanted then made it permanent.
Right now I think our priorities are to get the CF City Council to approve
the project which may positively effect the search for $$$ and at the same
time get our DNR application in which has to be signed by the City.
We have petitions at: |
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| Encourage all your family and friends to sign them! | ||
As for size, we hope to have enough water flow to make it a full 300 m - plus & should be about 25 to 30 feet wide at the surface. Don said the bedrock should be easy to shape and making a divot where we plan to set boulders to help keep them in place during high water. As far as upstream, we don't want to impact boating at all. If the water level is down to where opening a gate would take the upper pool down we won't open the gate. I'm guessing that today's stream flow is close to that point. I've been comparing the actual flow (visually at the dam) with USGS streamflow gauges (CF and Waterloo) and think that at 1500 cfs we can open one gate while keeping a flow over the spillway and have enough water to at least play in.
Courses with more drop need less cfs and vice versa. If we experiment around and find that a full fledged course isn't feasible, we can at least make four or five really awesome rodeo holes and still hold rodeo competitions which is the big draw anyway. But I'm sure the full course is completely within our reach.
Everyone we've approached and who has approached us is for it! Someone from Cottage Row even stopped while we were on the river one day and offered support and contacts. Not a word was said about disrupting the upper pool. Two UNI students who guide in Colorado during the summer came down with their kayaks and talked to us at length about how cool it'd be to have a course in CF. They are going to spread the word as much as possible too.
As far as help... a call to the CF council in support would be a start. A hydrologist for expert advice, a D-8 and a big back-hoe to start channeling the flow, boulders, quarried bridge blocks, concrete, signage, etc so whatever your forte or connection is a place to start.