University of Georgia intends to clean polluted campus lake

(AP) — The University of Georgia is aiming to clean up a polluted campus lake, whose waters have been off limits to the public since a 2002 algae bloom vividly showed off the lake's high pollution load.

Final design plans should be ready by around March, with construction to begin next fall, The Athens Banner-Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2hGklYz).

A 2006 restoration plan called for restoring an upper pond which filtered out some pollution before it reached Lake Herrick, but that was shelved after planners in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources discovered that restoring the dam would entail an extensive repair of the upper pond's dam.

The upper pond, now drained and more like a wetland than a water body, will be at the center of the first phase, which could include restoring the pond or even converting it into a wetland, UGA Environmental Coordinator Kevin Kirsche said.