VALLEY PARK, Mo. (KMOX) - What to do about the big sinkhole that drank half the lake at Lone Elk Park this spring? Engineers with the St. Louis County Parks Department are weighing their options.
County Parks manager of design and development, Tobi Moriarity says it's a chronic problem for the 17-acre lake.
"It's a guarantee that a hole will open up again," she says. "It's just a matter of when."
Problems with the lake go back to the 1950s with multiple instances of sinkholes. Moriarty says they'll be asking contractors soon to bid on three possible solutions and repairs could get underway over the winter.
"Obviously the community wants it, the parks department wants it," she says. "But we have a lot of other needs pulling at our purse strings."
The last big sinkhole at Lone Elk Park lake cost county taxpayers $22,000 to repair and that was five years ago.
Related
Photos of the latest lake-draining sinkhole went viral in May. Park officials say tens of thousands of gallons of water in the man-made lake went down the hole. The water came up in the nearby Castlewood State Park.
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