Dallas City Council approves White Rock Lake dredging project

The Dallas City Council voted to contract an outside firm in its next step toward dredging White Rock Lake during a Dec. 14 regular meeting.

The process of dredging will help to clean out the bed of an area of water by scooping out mud, weeds and rubbish.

“[White Rock Lake] is utilized by almost everybody in the region,” said Paula Blackmon, Dallas City Council member for District 9, during the meeting. “It is time for a new dredging.”

According to the passed resolution, Freese and Nichols Inc. will provide preliminary engineering design services for the White Rock Lake dredging project. These preliminary services are expected to cost up to $952,700 and will come from the city’s general fund.

In September 2020, the city of Dallas hired Freese and Nichols to perform a dredging feasibility study for White Rock Lake. The city requested the firm have further involvement in the project throughout 2022. The Dallas Parks and Recreation Board approved the contract with the company Dec. 8.

White Rock Lake has been dredged four times: in 1937, 1955, 1974 and most recently 1998.

In 2015, the Texas Water Development Board completed its Volumetric and Sedimentation Survey of the lake to analyze the lake’s depth and sediment thickness, finding the volume of water in the lake was down nearly 8,000 acre-feet from its original volume in 1911, when the lake was built.