Despite the recent nervous talk, fish will swim and boaters will navigate once again in the popular Speedwell Forge Lake.

They just might have to wait a few more months than anticipated to do so.

The reconstruction of the lake and its storm-damaged dam in northern Lancaster County was the subject of a recent discussion at a municipal meeting, where officials said the project had been delayed a year and expressed unease about the funding.

The project has been pushed back about six months, until the end of 2015, a member of a citizens group said. The funding is not in danger, officials said.

"It's falling back a few months," said Milt Lauch, secretary for the Save Speedwell group and a neighbor of the lake.

Elizabeth Township supervisors had discussed the reconstruction of the dam and the lake last week at their meeting. They said a local legislator, state Rep. Mindy Fee, had told them the completion date for the project had been pushed back one year, until 2016.

The supervisors also expressed unease about $6.4 million in state funding that has been promised for the project.

Lauch said he contacted the state Fish & Boat Commission, which owns the lake, for clarification on both points after he heard the news of the meeting.

He said a commission official told him the project would be done in November or December 2015, about six months later than the June 2015 date that was originally anticipated.

Fish & Boat Commission spokesman Eric Levis confirmed that change in the schedule.

"You have to understand these construction projects are fluid and there can be changes in the schedule," he said. "The June 2015 was a best-case scenario."

Fee said there might have been a misunderstanding about the completion date. In recent talks with Elizabeth Township supervisors, she indicated the project would be done by the beginning of 2016, which might have led to the idea that it was being delayed by a year, she said.

Township officials also had expressed some nervousness about the $6.4 million in state funding.

"When you never have seen a news release coming, or the governor saying it is going to happen, you tend to get a little nervous," Brian Wiker, supervisor chairman, said after the meeting.

Said Supervisor Rodney May, "Government officials said the money is there, and I think it will be there, it's just that it hasn't changed hands yet.

"People are sort of on the skeptical side. Stranger things have happened with the state of Pennsylvania."

But Lauch and Fee both said the project will be a go, and Levis said a schedule for the project has been drawn up.

"From what the fish commission is telling me, the funding is there at this point," Fee said.

In 2011, the 106-acre lake was drained to alleviate pressure on its dam, which had been damaged by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. The resulting soggy crater has been nicknamed the "Speedwell Swamp" by some residents.

Save Speedwell recently announced it had received a $432,509 state grant to make the upper end of the lake deeper before it is repaired and refilled.
cstauffer@lnpnews.com