By Jill Fennema –

For many years, there has been talk around town about how it would  be nice if Edgerton had an outdoor skating rink for locals to play ice hockey, broom ball, or just skate around and enjoy the outdoors. A few years ago, the city set aside some funds that were to be dedicated to making that happen, but an ideal location was never found. Meanwhile, other towns like Jasper and Chandler tried to build skating rinks without a lot of luck.

Then last week, Edgerton Waste Water Supervisor Jeff Snyder had an idea and he ran with it.  Sndyer used the city gator to clean the snow off the small pond that is located south of Rock River Park in some trees. The area is almost more of a slough than a pond.

First he cleared the snow off the existing ice and made a burm all the way around the pond. Then he pumped water from below the ice on top of the ice, flooding it an additional 8 inches or so, to cover branches and brushes that were poking above the ice.

Then he created a homemade zamboni machine to smooth the ice. “I spend a whole $3,” he said. He attached a PVC pipe with small holes in it to the city’s watering apparatus. Then he attached some old towels to the PC. The water runs out and the towels smooth i and it freezes quickly on top of the ice, smoothing out the rough patches.