By Taylor Boyd
Fairy Stone State Park held its annual beach maintenance on its swimming area earlier this year.
Park Manager Adam Layman said park staff accomplished this by lowering the lake’s water level to work on the beach.
“A lot of the sand gets pulled down out of the swimming area so we’re able to pull some sand back up and rebuild the beach each year,” he said.
Lowering the water level also allows for Layman and others to get logs and other debris out of the water.
Layman said this process does not harm the lake in anyway as “it’s usually just a short period of time that it’s down. We actually extended out the swimming area about 20 feet or so just so we could have more deeper swimming and more area for people to swim in,” he said.
He estimates that it normally takes one week to get the water low enough to work on the beach and another one to week weeks for it to fill back up after the water gates are closed.