As many of you may know, Big Lake, Missouri located at Big Lake State Park was hit with back to back floods in 2010 and 2011. Due to the devastation of these floods many lost their homes, belongings and were out of homes for months. The 2011 flood was devastating leaving behind what can only be explained as looking like our Big Lake Village had been hit with a bomb. Missouri River flood waters even washed away our highways, the Village water mains and some homeowners land, but it did not wash away their spirit! As always, when the water receded, our little community got right back up helped each other rebuild! Since that time, the Big Lake community has come back and is really thriving to get the lake back in shape! As a result of the severe flooding, Big Lake had become very shallow and in some places due to silt that some property owners only had a few inches of water in front of their property. We have been very fortunate to have people in our community work very hard to get a dredge to Big Lake to take silt out of the lake. In addition the people in our community who volunteer their land for a place for the silt removed. The dredge has hit many areas of the lake improving the depth of the lake. But time is running short and so are the funds to keep it going. Dredging is very costly and we are looking to get the most out of this equipment while it is here we possibly can!


The Big Lake community is looking to our surrounding community get together to help make Big Lake better by dredging more of the lake while the dredge is still here. Power is in numbers and it costs a lot to get the dredge here and we only have it for a short time before it is gone. It is extremely more economical to dredge while we can! The goal of this additional project is to dredge at least a 1 mile long channel down the center of the lake or as far as donated funds will allow. This would improve many things such as property value, wildlife and recreation. We have just began efforts and have donations close to $20,000. The dredge operating cost is based on square footage. The approximate cost of 1 mile (5,280 feet) is around $65,000.00. We are looking to hit a goal of $60,000.00 - $100,000.00 so that we would be able to go that 1 mile distance and even farther if funds would allow! We do not have much time before they pack up the dredge. This is a great time for this project! The equipment is already here and it is the "off season" at Big Lake and it won’t affect recreation this time of year. Power is in numbers, let’s keep improving the lake! Any donations to this project would be greatly appreciated by all in our community at Big Lake State Park, thank you!