MINOCQUA – Minocqua’s town board has signed off on a settlement agreement with Wisconsin Valley Improvement Company (WVIC), which last month sued the town for $20,000 towards repairs to a dam built in 1917 on the Tomahawk River.
The Wausau-based company will now receive $10,000 toward the repairs, according to the agreement announced after a closed board session Monday. The town’s insurance carrier, Employers Mutual Casualty Company, will cover the cost. Wausau based-WVIC is a private company that owns and operates several dams on the upper Wisconsin River and its tributaries, principally to maintain a reservoir system for hydroelectric generation.
In 1939, WVIC gave the town an easement over the small concrete dam for the purpose of “laying out, opening up and operating and maintaining” a public highway on top of the dam.” Since then, the town has repaired and maintained Dam Road, including snowplowing and new blacktop in 1987. The road is the only access for more than two-dozen property owners on a peninsula going into Kawaguesaga Lake. The company determined in 2014 that the dam needed substantial repairs and upgrades to make it safe. The price tag at that time was $260,000. It wanted the town to impose a 7-ton weight limit for vehicles, but the town refused to do so. WVIC went ahead with temporary repairs completed in November of 2015, giving the one-lane bridge and dam an additional 5-year lifespan. The work included a new road base, blacktopping and barrier walls at a cost of nearly $48,000.
WVIC sued after the town refused to pay s portion toward those repairs. The town believes WVIC owns the entire structure and should pay for all repairs and upgrades. Town Chairman Mark Hartzheim said the board vote to settle the case was unanimous. “The board really wanted to be involved in the settlement,” Hartzheim said. He said the town’s insurer “worked with us and made sure it was palatable for the town and not settled just to get rid of the case.” The town does not acknowledge responsibility for any cost of future repairs, the town chairman said of the agreement. “We made sure it was not a basis for anything going forward.”
WVIC has not set a date when those major repairs will be undertaken. “We will see where it goes,” Hartzheim said of any future decisions by the board.
