Signs on the Center Lake pier inform the public that no patrons are allowed on the pier, just lifeguards. The pier has a number of safety hazards, including holes and rusted metal sticking up along the side of the pier. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union

Due to safety hazards, there are signs in English and Spanish on the Center Lake pier that say “No Patrons On Pier - Lifeguards Only.”

The water around the pier has been known in the past to contain harmful bacteria.

In an effort to eliminate those health and safety risks, the city of Warsaw wants to remove the pier that’s been there since 1978, but first it’s got to find the funding to do so as it’s estimated to cost as much as a half million dollars for the removal.

Friday, City Planner Justin Taylor requested permission from the Board of Public Works and Safety to seek grant opportunities related to the pier’s removal. He plans to apply for grants from the K21 Health Foundation, Kosciusko County Community Foundation and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

“To clarify on the DNR, still examing different opportunities, but I won’t be pursuing funds from their Water & Land Grant, so I wanted to make sure that was clear,” Taylor said. “There’s multiple different grants that the DNR offers, but the Water & Land Grant would not fit this specific request.”

At a June Board of Works meeting, they approved the Center Lake Recreational Trail and Taylor said they were really excited about that project. It will include the installation of two new piers on the lake.

“As part of that project, we wanted to remove the existing pier because of some condition issues. It’s been in its current state for at least the last 40 years and it’s starting to show its age. It’s also designed in a way that isn’t beneficial to the health of the lake. So we want to take this opportunity to pull that pier out,” Taylor said.

He reminded the board that they weren’t able to include the pier removal with the trail project bid award last month because of costs.

R Yoder Construction’s agreement with the city for the trail project is for the base bid and alternate No. 1 for $974,870. The Sasso previously family donated $1 million toward the project.

“The cost of removal of the existing pier came in significantly higher than our engineers anticipated. It’s about a half million dollars to remove that pier, so we’re looking at all of the opportunities that we have through state funding, local funding to get this pier removed because we feel like it’s in the best interest of the health of the lake to do so,” Taylor told the board Friday.

Any grants that they are awarded will go before the Board of Works for their review and final approval.

Mayor Joe Thallemer said, “It became very complicated when they were going through the bidding process on how exactly they were going to remove that pier. It’s thought that they’d have to be out on the lake on a barge and come back in because of the instability of the pier, so they couldn’t come up from the shore, and obviously the uncertainty created a premium, if you will, on the costs to do that.”

He said Parks and Recreation Superintendent Larry Plummer made him aware of some spots along the edge of the pier that are rusted. He asked Plummer if the pier was now closed to swimmers.

“We’ve had the pier closed for the last two seasons,” Plummer stated. “We allow nobody on it except for our lifeguards, just for the fact that we patched some areas, but as fast as we patch them they fall through. There’s trip hazards. There’s rusted metal on the sides.”

Years ago when there was a flood and then a hard freeze in the winter, Plummer said that buckled the pier.

“You can actually see the waves in that pier right now. The structure is starting to deteriorate really bad, so it’s not only an environmental problem with e.Coli, it’s actually a structural problem with that pier as well,” Plummer said.

Board member George Clemens asked how old the pier was. Plummer said he found prints from 1978 and the pier was placed over an existing pier.

“They had an open pier underneath there, and then ... came in and drove sheet pile around that pier and then filled it in and then put the top on it, in ’78,” Plummer explained.

A concern with removing the pier is that if the sheet pile is rusted and it breaks during the removal process, that creates more problems.

“We definitely wanted it to be a part of this (trail) project, and the engineers initially estimated it at a couple hundred thousand, and then it far exceeded that because of the uncertainty,” Thallemer stated.

He asked Taylor if there might be other DNR grants they could apply for, and Taylor said there were and they were exploring those to see which one fit the best.

Councilman and board member Jeff Grose asked if Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Director Dr. Nate Bosch was made aware of the pier and its issues. Thallemer said Bosch was the one who did the study that showed that bird feces were dropping down from the pier into the shallow area of the water where there was no circulation. The shallow area then gets heated up and e.Coli levels grow.

“We had to shut down the lake, at least the swimming portion,” Thallemer recalled. “That’s unfortunately really what kind of started this discussion, and now the structural integrity of the thing makes it all more obvious we need to do something.”

The board unanimously approved for Taylor to seek grants for the pier removal.