Lake Elkhorn

The Columbia Association is looking for a new contractor to complete the dredging of Lake Elkhorn, where a contract dispute and lawsuit left the $5.3 million job incomplete. Mobile Pumping and Dredging Co. of Chester, Pa., began the job in late 2009 and stopped for the winter in December, but work never resumed this spring after the Columbia Association decided not to extend the firm's contract. In March, the company removed its equipment. CA officials have abandoned negotiations with Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting on a contract to complete the work, and the homeowners association says it plans to request new bids by late May. The company is working on a similar project at Lake Kittamaqundi.

As an Ellicott City neighbor of Columbia who has enjoyed many aspects of downtown over the years, let me weigh in and say that, from my perspective the current proposal for Symphony Woods is going in the wrong direction. Toby's Dinner Theatre is wonderful. Toby's is art. Toby's does not make a neighborhood vibrant. Toby's patrons go immediately indoors when they arrive and are sequestered for up to five hours. Even on the best weather days only about 20 patrons go outside between the dinner and show and at intermission. Most go for a smoke, the rest to use their phones. After the show all depart within 15 minutes. And after hours eating, drinking and being entertained, they do not go for more desserts and drinks. All of the vibrancy is contained indoors, not out in the neighborhood.

Fifteen residents who live beside Columbia's algae-choked Lake Elkhorn are sponsoring a public meeting Tuesday night to inform the public about the 37-acre lake's prospects. The residents of Swan Point, a townhouse community on the lake's northern shore, were upset when a long-planned dredging project suddenly stopped in March, before the job was finished. The Pennsylvania contractor filed a $1 million suit against the Columbia Association, the lake's owner, contending that it failed to pay the full bill for the work.

Send sports notices a minimum of two weeks before the requested publication date to Patuxent Publishing/MS Sports Notices, Third floor, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21278; e-mail tworgo@tribune.com . Include date, time, location, contact information and subsection. Competitive Pipeline Soccer Club holds spring academy for boys and girls, ages five to 10 at Friends School. http://pipelinesoccerclub.com. Towsontowne 11U holds baseball tryouts, Feb. 3. jpk2919@gmail.com . Cockeysville rec holds boys lacrosse registration for ages five to 14. http://www.cockeysvillerec.org . Spots available on our junior A team.

Dredging of Columbia's 37-year-old Lake Elkhorn will resume, but curbing residential runoff that carries sediment and algae-producing nutrients into it is the key to its long-term health, a panel of four experts told a crowd composed mostly of Owen Brown residents Tuesday night. "We're going to need your help in restoring water quality," the Columbia Association's watershed director, John McCoy, told more than 80 people at the Owen Brown Interfaith Center. Lake Elkhorn, he said "was built to trap sediment, and it's done a very good job of that.

A free Tuesday night concert series at Lake Elkhorn begins this week with a bluegrass performance on banjo and other instruments by Banjerdan at 7 p.m. Almost Recess, an a cappella group of five musicians, will perform July 12, and Milkshake will be featured July 19. The series will conclude with a performance by Walt Michael & Company on July 26. The concerts, which begin at 7 p.m. in the band shell at the Lake Elkhorn spillway, are sponsored by...

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources will stock rainbow trout in Lake Elkhorn through April.Scheduled dates include the weeks of Feb. 27, March 13, March 27 and April 10.The daily creel limit will be five trout per angler. Fishing will be permitted during daylight only.To fish and keep the trout, fishermen ages 16 through 65 will need a Maryland fishing license ($10) and a trout stamp ($5). People 65 and older need only a senior license, which costs $5.For information, call the Regional Office of Fisheries for Howard County at 442-2080.

Preparatory work on the long-planned dredging of Lake Elkhorn in Columbia is to begin in early October with the award of the dredging bid to a Chester, Pa., firm, according to an announcement from the Columbia Association. Mobile Dredging and Pumping Co. was chosen from among four finalists for the job that the announcement said would remove about 52,000 cubic yards of sediment from the 34-year-old lake, which has never been extensively dredged before. Several aspects of the job remained unclear, however.

The Rouse Co. built Columbia as a suburban utopia, complete with manufactured lakes and scenic pathways. Now some residents are concerned that a different kind of master builder is chopping away at its beauty.A pair of beavers -- those four-legged, furry builders with chisel-like teeth and webbed hind feet -- are gnawing and felling saplings and other trees along picturesque Lake Elkhorn in Columbia's Owen Brown village. That activity concerns longtime Lake Elkhorn walkers William Ewart and Norman La Cholter, both of Oakland Mills.

The first major dredging of sediment since Lake Elkhorn was built in the mid-1970s has been delayed at least a month, Columbia Association officials say. The $5.2 million project to remove 60,000 cubic yards of silt from Columbia's largest lake was to have begun by late August, but CA contract administrator Diana Kelley said Tuesday night at the Owen Brown Community Center that none of the four bids submitted in July were acceptable and that a new round...

Send sports notices a minimum of two weeks before the requested publication date to Patuxent Publishing/TT Sports Notices, Third floor, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21278; e-mail tworgo@tribune.com . Include date, time, location, contact information and subsection. Competitive Towsontowne 11U holds baseball tryouts, Feb. 3. jpk2919@gmail.com . Pipeline Soccer Club holds spring academy for boys and girls, ages five to10 at Friends School. http://pipelinesoccerclub.com.

For people-watching, there is no better spot than Joe Caliguro's Columbia townhouse. He and his wife can walk out to the porch and find a stream of people walking by on the path below. Caliguro, a retired television producer, owns one of about 130 houses that border the nearly 2-mile public trail next to Lake Elkhorn. For the residents who live nearby, the man-made lake is also an extension of their backyards, providing picturesque views and lots of foot traffic just beyond their porches.

I'm fed up. This Saturday morning while running my dogs around Lake Elkhorn I came across three people standing on the trail talking, with a black dog at their side. At least one of them could clearly see me coming. I shortened up my already short leashes (4 feet long) and proceeded to run past them. As I did, the dog lurched at us and broadsided one of my dogs, forcing me off the trail. I turned and said, "Why don't you control your dog?" To which the owner said, "Why didn't you let us know you were coming?"

Dredging of Columbia's 37-year-old Lake Elkhorn will resume, but curbing residential runoff that carries sediment and algae-producing nutrients into it is the key to its long-term health, a panel of four experts told a crowd composed mostly of Owen Brown residents Tuesday night. "We're going to need your help in restoring water quality," the Columbia Association's watershed director, John McCoy, told more than 80 people at the Owen Brown Interfaith Center. Lake Elkhorn, he said "was built to trap sediment, and it's done a very good job of that.

Fifteen residents who live beside Columbia's algae-choked Lake Elkhorn are sponsoring a public meeting Tuesday night to inform the public about the 37-acre lake's prospects. The residents of Swan Point, a townhouse community on the lake's northern shore, were upset when a long-planned dredging project suddenly stopped in March, before the job was finished. The Pennsylvania contractor filed a $1 million suit against the Columbia Association, the lake's owner, contending that it failed to pay the full bill for the work.

The Columbia Association is looking for a new contractor to complete the dredging of Lake Elkhorn, where a contract dispute and lawsuit left the $5.3 million job incomplete. Mobile Pumping and Dredging Co. of Chester, Pa., began the job in late 2009 and stopped for the winter in December, but work never resumed this spring after the Columbia Association decided not to extend the firm's contract. In March, the company removed its equipment. CA officials have abandoned negotiations with Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting on a contract to complete the work, and the homeowners association says it plans to request new bids by late May. The company is working on a similar project at Lake Kittamaqundi.

The Owen Brown Community Association will hold its 33rd and final Lake Elkhorn Festival from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Lake Elkhorn Park. The Columbia Concert Band will play at 11 a.m. Singer Iris Hirsch will perform at 12:15 p.m. and Dean Turner will present a magic show at 1 p.m. The Kinderman is scheduled for 2 p.m.; a pet show (all animals welcome) for 3 p.m.; and Eyes of Alice, a teen band, will play at 4 p.m. Bingo, games for children, a pet show, pony rides, an auction, arts and crafts, raffles, international food and drinks, a bake contest, big wheel races, a German band, vendors and other treats are planned.

A Pennsylvania dredging company hired by the Columbia Association to remove tons of sediment from the bottom of Lake Elkhorn is packing its equipment and leaving the job unfinished as a financial dispute continues over the massive task. Workers for Mobile Dredging and Pumping of Chester Pa. this week began vacating the work site at the 37-acre lake instead of resuming the work after a winter hiatus. Columbia Association board chairwoman Cynthia Coyle confirmed that CA did not extend an expired contract with Mobile.

Nine small turtle eggs dug from the shores of Columbia's Lake Elkhorn in early July have produced penny-sized, non-native false map turtles normally found along the Mississippi River, raising concern that the species may have invaded Columbia. "Maybe there is a breeding pair of turtles in the lake," said Ray Bosmans of Clarksville, president of the Howard based Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society, but that's not clear. Because everything about turtles seems to move in slow motion, Bosmans said the mother could have mated more than a year before she laid the eggs, perhaps before someone left her in the wilds of Columbia.