By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Fishing continued Saturday at Heddon Park despite the noisy distraction of a crane and a throng of people providing periodic repair to the Mill Pond dam.
The Mill Pond association volunteers looked a little like proud anglers, too, except their "catch" spread out on the bank was bowed yellow pine planks pulled out of the "hole" and replaced with white oak.
Wayne Township Supervisor Dr. Frank Butts was involved Saturday and the last time maintenance was performed on the dam 12 years ago.
"I get the permit from the DNR (Michigan Department of Natural Resources)," the veterinarian said. "Last time it was a lot easier to get. This time it was tough. The dam belongs to the association. The city doesn't own this" adjacent to Heddon Park.
"Every two years our association has to pay an engineer to do an inspection, like saplings growing that we've got to get out of there so they don't create tunnels with their roots," Dr. Butts explained.
With some of the pine boards bowing, the association decided it was time to replace them.
"When the water level was down (lowered about three feet in anticipation of the project), we could see it spraying underneath the overflow," Dr. Butts said.
"We made a total of 96 individual boards," said Tim Hippensteel of the lumber donated by David Cook of Suntree Hardwoods.
"We did all the millwork on it. It took us about 2 1/2 days to get these ready for them. They vary in size from 12 inches down to six inches in width. The average width was eight to nine inches. It's just under seven feet wide."
"We put them together with 24 for each (of the four) sections. They didn't know that the front walls are sitting on 20-inch open spaces. That's how the dam works. The front wall is open. It fills up the center. Then the water comes over the back. Nobody knew that, so they've got extra boards left over."
Hippensteel said white oak planks hoisted in with a Cass County Crane will prove more durable than the yellow pine insets removed.
"White oak is one of the best you can use," he said. "It's got a lot of natural oil in it. You can't use red oak or any other oak because they won't last. They'll deteriorate. White oak will last many years. These are five inches thick. The old ones were 3 1/2 inches thick. I wouldn't be surprised if these last 50 years. None of us here will do this again unless something catastrophic happens to it."
"There are more than 400 kinds of oak trees growing in the United States," Hippensteel continued, "but only white oak has its natural oil. When white oak falls down and lays on the ground, it will be there for decades."
"The crane put that shield in there to cut off the flow" while men of the association worked in the "hole," as retired Southwestern Michigan College president David Briegel referred to it.
"They cut one side off and did that," Hippensteel said, "then they cut the other side. From the base to the bottom of that tie there's 104 inches height, and it's seven feet wide. There's two flats on each side. This will all be back underwater" when the original level returns.