ORONOCO, Minn. (KTTC) -- Olmsted County is one step closer to revitalizing the Lake Shady bed.
The floods in September of 2010 leveled the lake's dam, taking Lake Shady with it.
"Every time we have a major rain event I just pray that it doesn't hit us at Oronoco because we have a lot of sediment that's just sitting on top of that lake bed that's ready to go downstream," Olmsted County Commissioner Judy Ohly said.
Tuesday afternoon, the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners voted in favor of pursuing condemnation proceedings of the Oronoco dam.
The county plans to remove what's left of the dam and develop a park in the area where Lake Shady was located.
However, before this can be done the county needs to acquire some land and property rights.
"When you have a lake that's existed for several decades and suddenly basically it's gone in the scope of about a day, it creates all kinds of unique issues that rarely come up in the state of Minnesota so there's going to be some interesting legal issues that have to addressed I think by the courts in this case," said Tom Canan with the Olmsted County Attorney's Office.
Olmsted County is trying to acquire the rights through buyouts funded by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
About 10 people could be affected and it needs to be done before the county can remove the Oronoco dam.
"It's a navigational hazard and everyone recognizes that, including the DNR, that it's got to come out of there in some form," Canan said.
Construction on the Oronoco dam is set to begin in January.
Olmsted County hopes to complete the Zumbro River Restoration project by the end of 2013.
