In the Stone Eater Bike Park April Update, City of Lebanon Engineer Kevin Krulik recaps the need for expedited removal of some of the trees within the former landfill space. Krulik also discusses his visit with Nat Lopes from Hilride Progression Development. The pair walked the current design for the mountain bike park, and made a few tweaks to best maximize the available riding space and features.
“We had to get the trees down,“ said Krulik. “One, to protect the wetland, but also we had a tight deadline because of Department of Natural Resources laws protecting bats in Indiana. We had to have the trees down before the end of March, and they assured us that it could easily be done. It went exactly to plan.”
“It was great having Nat Lopes visit the site,” added Krulik. “He had not been on site since early 2020. A lot had changed since he was here and it was great to take the preliminary plans that he has put together and, as he would call it, ‘ground truth’ those. So we spent a lot of time with GPS locations, making adjustments here or there to take advantage of terrain or rocks that we found on-site or large trees, to avoid those things, or take advantage of the challenge that those things bring to provide to mountain bikers.”
“Getting over the geology enclosure was huge from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s perspective,” said Krulik. “There were a lot of unknowns that we weren’t for sure would be required. Ultimately we wanted to do the right thing and protect the ground water and protect the landfill, so that was important to us to get over that hurdle.”
“There is still a lot in front of us,” said Krulik. “I don’t want to fool anyone. We have got fundraising to worry about. We’ve got project approvals to work through, but we are closer now than ever, and every day we continue to take baby steps toward the finish line.”
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