The two logos will be used in different capacities, Webster County Conservation Director Matt Cosgrove said.

“One of them will be more like our main logo for the building and for our stationery and that kind of stuff,” he said. “And then the other one will be more of a marketing logo, to be used on T-shirts, water bottles, stickers and that kind of thing.”

The logos were designed by the marketing team at ISG Engineering, the Des Moines-based design consultant on the building, Cosgrove said. ISG provided four logo options and Tuesday night, the conservation board selected two of them.

The River’s Edge Discovery Center is currently under construction on the riverfront along First Street near Central Avenue in Fort Dodge. The $6.7 million nature center is expected to be completed by July 2024.

-Submitted image
This logo for the River's Edge Discovery Center will be used for marketing materials like T-shirts and stickers.

The Nature Center building will be focused on Iowa’s water resources. Its exhibits will cover the water cycle, wetlands, glaciers and rivers and streams.

The conservation board also received an update on two major quality of life projects out at John F. Kennedy Memorial Park. Cosgrove noted that the new Badger Lake Trail, a two-mile hard-surface trail loop around Badger Lake, was completed and opened late last month.

The other project coming to a close was the Badger Lake Restoration Plan, which is starting to get wrapped up.

Last August, Nels Pederson Co., of Badger, was the winning bid for the Badger Lake project, for a base bid of $88,087 plus hourly work up to $200,000. The project was mostly funded through the Conservation Trust Fund and a $63,000 Water Quality Grant from the state.

The lake had not had any significant improvements or restoration since it was built in 1965. Much of the work, including the draining of the lake’s water, was completed over the fall and winter. The project included silt removal and shoreline protection.

Cosgrove said that the contractor is on site working on spreading out some of the silt that they were able to pull up out of the lake basin over the winter. He said as that silt dries out, they’ll spread it out around the lake and seed it with grass.

“We’ve got a new dock that we’ve ordered,” Cosgrove added. “We have a really small population of adult bass and bluegill.”

Cosgrove said visitors are welcome to fish in the lake, but that Webster County Conservation asks that all fish that are caught are thrown back into the water to help speed up the repopulation of the lake. He said additional fish will be added later this summer, including catfish, and in a year or two they’ll add crappies.