LAKE DELHI, Iowa — Fifteen months of talking about restoring the heavily damaged Lake Delhi dam finally turned into some engineering activity at the site. But it’s really just the first step in a very long process to refill the drained lake.

Heavy rains overtopped the dam and caused a breach draining the recreational lake in July of 2010. Lake supporters have waged an ongoing battle to win funding to rebuild the dam that dates to the 1920s.

But after all the talk, some actual work connected to restoration didn’t begin until last Friday. Crews from Braun Soil Testing Service began using a drilling rig to locate the depth of bedrock underneath the ruined portion of the dam. It’s part of a $350,000 engineering study approved by lawmakers to see if rebuilding the dam is feasible and how much it would cost. Lawmakers also earmarked $5-million dollars as the state’s portion of restoring the dam. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad used a line-item veto to delete that dam funding last July.

Steve Leonard, president of the Lake Delhi Taxing Association, said the drilling taking place in what was the spillway area of the failed dam will last for several weeks. When that’s finished, workers will move on to other tests that will make up the conclusions of the dam restoration study. That report is due at the end of November and will give Lake Delhi supporters enough time to draw up a plan and go back to state lawmakers for funding this winter.

Pat Colgan, a retired civil engineer assisting on the dam study, said crews will drill 15 or 16 holes into the river bed to insure that a rebuilt dam will have a solid foundation. He said so far crews have located solid bedrock at a depth of about two feet. He said that indicates the designers of the original dam 90 years ago put it in the correct location and rebuilding is feasible from a construction standpoint.

Part of the pre-construction study also will be used to determine if the type of dam needed will be a “moderate” or “high hazard” dam. A moderate dam is expected to cost about $10-million dollars with another $3-$4-million dollars needed for electrical generation equipment. If a “high hazard” dam-type is needed, that would increase costs another 10-20%.

Taxing district officials said few people visit the site of the ruined dam these days because there is no longer a road that crosses the Maquoketa River at that site. So relatively few people have seen that some actual construction-related work is under way. But Leonard said he expects the news to cheer those living in the lake district because there has been relatively little news to cheer about since the dam broke.