Plan to go beneath Ventura Cemetery is met with resistance
Clear Lake Sanitary District Board of Trustees was expected to direct its engineer to gather cost estimates associated with using an alternate route for placement of a force main in Ventura when it met Tuesday, Sept. 25. The action comes on the heels of a tumultuous week between the Sanitary District and residents upset by a proposal to run the force main under the Ventura Cemetery.
Board members met with cemetery trustees and public objectors to the project Friday at the cemetery, which is located on County Road S-14, just north of the Grade.
Sanitary District Superintendent Kevin Moler explained the district board had been talking with cemetery trustees since March in anticipation of needing an easement to locate a line under the cemetery in association with the planned dredging of the “Little Lake” at Ventura. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has asked the Sanitary District to abandon the current line because it sits on the bottom of the Little Lake and would be disturbed by the dredging. Once re-routed, the old line will be removed.
Acting on the engineer’s recommendation, the proposed new line was to have run from the lift station on the lake, underneath the cemetery and County Road S-14 to the parking lot across the street. It would then proceed under the Ventura Marsh and S-14 and tie into a force main in Ventura Heights.
Moler said after Friday’s meeting it was apparent the Board would need to look at other options.
“We just asked for the easement. We weren’t pushing it or threatening condemnation or anything of the sort,” said Moler. “We were just pursuing the most efficient route.”
He stressed the plan to run the line under the cemetery would not have changed the grounds. There would have been no construction on cemetery land because the 14-inch line will be bored approximately 25-feet underground.
But objectors were insistent the cemetery not be disturbed.

Lois (Kaster) Hauge, whose family donated the land for the cemetery in the early 1900s, referred to the site as a sacred burial place and vowed she would not stop fighting until the plan to bore under the cemetery was abandoned.
Moler said he is confident the engineer has now identified an alternate which will accomplish the project and not use the cemetery.
“The alternate will require the contractor to work in a tighter space and that may require more time, and therefore more money. But it results in a shorter distance, which may offset that, so the costs may be a wash,” said Moler.
The Sanitary District had planned to spend about $450,000 for the force main line relocation, based on the engineer’s estimate. However, bids for the work came in much less and the Board awarded the work to the low bidder at $198,000. Moler said the board will need to get new cost estimates from its engineer, then will likely hold a meeting Tuesday, Oct. 2, to approve a change order for the contractor.