Click here for the official update site by Yorkville.

For the unofficial story, I got this from Ken Gortowski, who took a bunch of photos yesterday and sent this:

It's not open to the public yet, but they finally opened the gates. Looks pretty good in it's rough state. Lots of clean up to do around the edges yet. Met a guy who's thinking of opening a kayak shop right there, Jeff Brown of The Yak Shack. Drove Valerie Burd, mayor of Yorkville, crazy with my surreal stream of questions and comments.

No real definitive answer with how fishermen will be kept away.

"It won't be allowed, the police will have to patrol it." I laughed. "Yeah, okay, but how you going to stop them?" And I laugh some more. I think she thinks I'm crazy.

Some great looking fish holding spots. But I was told no wading. I laughed some more. "Yeah, okay."

The USGS was down there doing velocity tests in different areas. The head engineer and I were joking about how it figures that water levels are down to just below normal for the first time in 4 years. He was hoping for more to show off.

All in all, that sounds like vintage Gortowski. And a lot of truth there.

Looking at the photos, I realize it has been longer than I thought since I went by there. Thought I was just there a couple months ago.

It looks very cool, it would be even cooler if the whole dam was gone and the entire spot looked like this.