County places erosion stone along Lake Orient shoreline

While the campgrounds the Adair County Conservation Board oversees are mostly closed for the season, Director Dominic Johnson reports that his department has been up to a lot lately.

Johnson gave a report of recent activities to the board of supervisors during their meeting Tuesday, Nov. 21, and offered an update to the newspaper over the phone later in the week.

Camping was down slightly in the first half of the fiscal year, Johnson reports, but the caveat is that last year was a “record-setting” year.

“We were just under [last year]. We’re still way up and having a lot of camping,” Johnson said. “We have our showerhouses closed up. We still have electricity and water on, but we usually keep them open through November because we have some campers that use our campgrounds.”

A recently completed project at Lake Orient has rehabilitated almost the entire shoreline. Erosion stone was delivered and placed around the entire lake costing about $26,000 in fish habitat grant funds.

“It will better help the fish habitat as well as shore-angling access and erosion control,” Johnson said. “It’s an awesome project that we just completed.”

According to Johnson, the conservation department received $10,000 in Empowering Adair County grant funds, which will be paired with $70,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds from the county, for the possibility of the addition of a picnic shelter at Mormon Trail County Park near Bridgewater and non-flush latrine there.

“I’ve been here for almost five years — I started in Feburary of 2019 — and we’ve really done a lot in the last few years now. We’ve continued to make good strides, bettering what we already had and also adding to that with new facilities for our guests,” Johnson said. “We’re really excited about the direction the county conservation board is going.”