Construction to help stabilize the Chippewa riverbank on lower campus will not begin this fall but after commencement in the spring, said Terry Classen, director of facilities planning and management.

The project has been planned for about three years, Classen said.

“This whole project is really about safety,” he said. “It would be irresponsible of us not to respond to a known safety hazard.”

The need for riverbank stabilization arose after 1993 flooding revealed weaknesses in the area. A gap 330 feet long and six inches wide was created in the bank.

Classen explained riverbank stability in terms of a sand castle.

If you build a pyramid out of sand, and then press your hand on it, he said, the pyramid would collapse under the pressure.

When floodwaters are absorbed into the soil of the riverbank, something similar occurs, he said. When the water tries to flow out of the bank, pressure builds, causing slope failure. The slope failure is what led to the gap in the riverbank.

This problem could crop up again, Classen said, if the bank is not stabilized.

Classen did not give an estimate on the final cost for the project.

Major objections on original project designs were made by the Third Ward Neighborhood Association, and later the Department of Natural of Resources.

Ken Fulgione, president of the Third Ward Neighborhood Association, said the original plan “was an atrocity.”

Those plans had the riverbank encroaching far out in the water, which concerned many Third Ward residents, he said.

Fulgione said the original plans would have caused considerable changes to the river, impacting areas both up and downstream from the site.

There also were problems with the original plan’s disruption of Putnam Park’s ecosystem, Fulgione said.

As a result of these concerns, the Third Ward hired a lawyer who worked to halt construction. At the same time, Fulgione said, the DNR began to question the original design.

In 2001 the DNR’s criteria changed, Classen said.

It is the responsibility of the engineers to meet the economic needs when a problem arises, Classen said. “(The engineers) did that with the original design based on the criteria given to them at the time by the DNR in 2001,” he said.

This prompted two years of redesign on the project by Ayres Associates, who designed the project, Classen said.

“I think if we had not stepped in, the project would have gone through in its originally bad plan,” Fulgione said.

UW-Eau Claire, the Third Ward and the DNR have approved the current plan.

It will encroach into the water up to five feet in select places, Classen said. Many other areas of the bank will not extend any farther into the river, he said.

Additionally, Classen said the revised plan would include replanting the bank with native plant species.

The first phase of construction that students will see could happen as early as winter break, when the existing trees will be removed from the riverbank, Classen said. The project will be substantially complete when students return to campus next fall, Classen said.

“We honestly took everyone’s input into consideration,” Classen said, “and I like this new design. I’m glad we have it. It’s an improvement.”