A $5,000 reward has been offered for information that leads to the arrest of whomever caused property damage at Twin Lakes last week.
Someone destroyed several large trees and a US Department of Agriculture building. The 8x8-foot building was used to verify that boats had been checked at the USDA checking station in Franklin for quagga mussels before entering the reservoir.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has damaged property on the Twin Lakes Company’s property. Within the last five years, someone has destroyed three groups of trees that were planted to provide shade for the camp host at the reservoir, and Twin Lakes officials have had enough, said Jim Naylor, a director of the Twin Lakes Canal Company. The first time, the trees were shot to the ground by shotguns. The second time they were cut down. This time someone simply drove over them.
That same person drove over the building– tire tracks were left behind on one of its flattened walls.
“We’re gong to do all we can to find the people who did this,” said Clair Bosen, president of the Twin Lakes Canal Company. “This wasn’t just trespassing. The people that do what they did are the same kind of people that would damage people’s homes. We’ve got to get it stopped or we won’t be able to keep it (the reservoir) open (to the public),” he said.
Over the last several years, the company has installed boat ramps, built campground sites, and improved the road accessing the reservoir.
Vandalism “hurts us financially, but it hurts the public as well because we won’t be able to keep it open if it keeps costing us money,” said Bosen.
Approximately 14,500 acre feet of water are stored in the twin reservoirs, and owned by 230 stockholders who use it to irrigate between an average 18,000 acres of farmland in Franklin County. In a high water year like this year, there will be about 21,000 acres on the West Side, in Winder, and in Riverdale.
