LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lakeport’s Library Park, closed last month due to the winter storms and the resulting flooding, is expected to remain out of public use for an extended time due to the continuing high water and the need to make repairs.

Lakeport Public Works Director Doug Grider told the Lakeport City Council on Tuesday night that as the floodwaters have been receding, the city has been opening more closed areas around the city.

That included, earlier on Tuesday, lifting the last portion of the closure on Lakeshore Boulevard, which had been covered by floodwaters and large amounts of debris during the height of the storms. On Tuesday, Lakeshore Boulevard’s southbound lane between Lange and Giselman streets reopened; the northbound lane had been reopened on March 13.

The Esplanade Street area, closed to the public on Feb. 27, remains blocked off to the public while waters continue to cover that street.

Also on Feb. 27, the city closed Library Park, which had been flooded and sustained wave intrusion from heavy winds, just as it had in early 2017. It has remained closed since then.

Grider told the council that repairs to the park may be delayed further if there is more rain this week, as has been forecast.

Despite park closure signs, people continue to walk through the park, and are causing damage, he said.

“The ground is so saturated right now that people are actually destroying the grass by walking on it,” he said.

There is a very muddy trail around the park’s centerpiece gazebo. Grider said that, by walking on the grass, people are pushing the grass down under the mud.

He said there also is lake water contamination on the playgrounds, noting there is a lot of “bad stuff” in floodwaters.

As happened in 2017, the playground’s wood chips have been washed away or destroyed, and Grider’s department is trying to streamline the process to replace the wood chips in the playground.

On Tuesday, Grider said the larger of the park’s two playgrounds still had a foot of water in it, and he anticipated it’s going to be “a little while” before all of the water is gone.

Grider said that the goal is to have the park fully reopened by Memorial Day weekend.

One of the challenges for the park is underground water intrusion. With the old seawall having been destroyed from wave action in the early 2017 storms, “the water is coming right in” and isn’t being held back, Grider said.

Since the 2017 storms, Grider and his staff have been working through the lengthy process with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to get the funds for the seawall’s replacement, which will be a metal sheet pile wall.

Grider said it’s hoped that a sheet pile wall will help protect the park from the kind of underground water intrusion that it is undergoing now.

City Manager Margaret Silveira said Tuesday night that the engineering for the new wall is now under way.

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