The Watershed Foundation’s Lyn Crighton receives the Limitless Award from Parks Director Holly Hummitch.

WINONA LAKE — The Winona Lake Town Council heard a report from Lyn Crighton, who as a representative of an organization dedicated to preserving water quality, nearly opened a new kind of water works after her presentation at the board’s regular meeting Tuesday, Aug. 20.

Crighton briefed the board on what her organization, The Watershed Foundation, is doing to help with improving water quality in the Warsaw area. Following her address, Parks Director Holly Hummitch presented Crighton with her department’s Limitless Award.

“For her vision, hard work, dedication to the Winona Shoreline Project, this year’s winner is Lyn Crighton,” said Hummitch. “Lyn, we are so thankful for your time, energy, sweat, that you’ve put forth to help this become a reality.”

Hummitch lauded Crighton’s efforts in spearheading a reconstruction of shoreline at Winona Lake’s Limitless Park.

The award was conceived in 2017.

Prior to receiving the award, Crighton explained some recent initiatives geared toward purifying waterways in the Warsaw area

“The Watershed Foundation has been working since 1997 to protect and improve water quality.,” she said. “We work in the headwaters of the Tippecanoe Watershed. It starts in Columbia City and flows through (North) Webster, Tippy (Tippecanoe Lake) and just a few years ago, we expanded to include Chapman, Center, Pike and Winona lakes. We have spent three years developing a watershed plan for all of the land that drains through Warsaw and Winona Lake. This watershed plan identifies the priority areas, where we should really work first to stop pollution from the watershed before it gets into the lake.”

Crighton told the board that the priority area includes all land that drains into Winona Lake and that another area, land which drains into Pike Lake, has the foundation’s attention as well. “So, everything that drains into Pike and Winona lakes are our biggest priority areas.”

Crighton told the board her foundation was seeking a grant for $100,000. She said the grant “would provide three years of funding to actually start fixing the problems that we’ve identified in the watershed.”

Crighton applauded the amount of volunteerism and her foundation’s role in enhancing the town’s shoreline. “That’s just a great example of what we do,” she said. “What sets us apart from other groups that are working on water quality is that we’re taking action, we’re helping lakes.”

Crighton said her organization has three strategies. “We engage the community, we unite partners and we implement solutions,” she said.