The Raccoon Lake Association voted at its meeting on Thursday to request the city of Centralia to establish a committee to develop a plan and apply for grant funding to stop shoreline erosion at Raccoon Lake.
Association President Tom Hawkins gave a presentation on transitional wetland breakwaters as a possibility for preventing erosion. Breakwaters are designed to stop erosion by absorbing wave energy and have the effect of improving water quality by trapping erosion silt and mineral particulates.
Hawkins says preventing erosion will be beneficial for the lake’s water and wildlife.
“You are basically creating a win-win situation for all concerned,” Hawkins said. “The wildlife benefit from it, the fish in particular. You stop the erosion, which means that the shorelines become stabilized and you don’t have problems with structural integrity. You’ve also improved the water quality with Raccoon Lake being a secondary water source. If you do the water quality and fix that, then everything else falls in place.”
The presentation showed breakwaters being used effectively on Lake Sara in Effingham to protect the shoreline. The breakwaters on Lake Sara were primarily funded by grants, and Hawkins believes that grants from environmental agencies could make a similar project possible for Centralia and Raccoon Lake.
“Doing the water quality, emphasizing that, gets a lot of eligibility possibility through the EPA and other things that deal with clean water… as you get more and more erosion coming into the lake, that really hurts the oxygen level. If you get that oxygen level too low over time, it won’t support fish.”
Also at the meeting, Centralia City Manager Galen Mahle confirmed that all parcels of land around Raccoon Lake are within the Centralia city limits and no hunting is allowed. Some city land has been mistakenly marked in certain hunting apps as being unowned, but Mahle says this is being corrected and “no hunting” signs will be added in appropriate locations.
The next Raccoon Lake Association meeting is scheduled for January 21, 2027.
