MAYFLOWER — If you missed last week’s meetings to offer ideas on new boat lanes to be added to Lake Conway, there’s still time to add your input. According to Nick Feltz, regional fisheries supervisor for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the planning team will accept suggestions for new boat lane locations on Lake Conway until Feb. 25.
Feltz, who is overseeing the Lake Conway renovation, says about 45 people have submitted suggestions for boat lane improvements since last Saturday. All 23 miles of existing boat lanes will be cleared of stumps during the drawdown and will be widened to 50 feet throughout the lake.
“I measured the street in front of my house and it’s only about 25 feet wide, so the new lanes should be plenty wide,” Feltz said. “We’re also going to mark them with large wooden utility poles that will be easy to see and should last a long time. We want to take care of these boat lanes once and for all during the project so we don’t have to come back and revisit them after the renovation is complete.”
In addition to the existing lanes, Feltz hopes to add up to 9 additional miles of new lanes to make navigation even better, and that’s where the public input meetings came in.
“There are some areas we know that could use a new lane, like near some of our primitive public accesses,” Feltz said. “But here’s the public’s chance to mark what lanes they would like to see added, too. We plan to compile everyone’s ideas and try to accommodate the most popular locations, if the depth will allow it and we’re not removing a lot of live cypress trees.”
