photo by: Lauren Fox

A boat crosses Clinton Lake on Friday, May 8, 2020.

With rising costs and a federal hiring freeze still in effect, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cutting services, adding fees and eliminating the last free camping area at Clinton Lake this recreational season.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages the 7,000-acre Clinton Lake as well as 15,000 surrounding acres. The Corps monitors and operates the dam for flood management, maintains some key parks and sites – such as Bloomington, Woodridge, and Rockhaven Parks – and provides environmental stewardship.

Meanwhile, the more well-known Clinton State Park, located on the lake’s north shore, is a state-managed recreational area offering developed campgrounds, beaches, and hiking/biking trails, while operating on the land owned by the federal government.

A federal hiring freeze that the Trump administration initiated in January 2025 aimed to reduce the federal workforce, and it was later extended indefinitely. It is still in effect. This has limited agencies like the the Corps from hiring new staff.

Kyle Broockerd, a natural resources manager for the Corps, told the Journal-World that three area lakes – Clinton, Hillsdale and Perry Lakes – only have 10 rangers covering 75,000 acres of land and water when you combine the three lakes. Historically, during the busy summer recreation season, those lakes would have closer to 15 to 20 rangers.

“We’re all trying to figure out basically how to provide an equivalent level of services we historically had to the extent we can with the resources that we have,” Broockerd said.

Broockerd said the Corps has been spending a lot of money on service contracts for the recreation spaces – such as cleaning the restrooms, mowing, herbicide spraying and other maintenance – and the agency hasn’t received enough funding to keep up with the actual costs of services.

“You’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in total,” Broockerd said.

In response, the Corps has made cuts to multiple service contracts and is charging new fees in parks, and has decided to add fees to the one campground at the lake that previously allowed people to camp for free.

“The intent is to just kind of live more within our means. We’ve had flat recreation budgets within the Corps for several years. Inflation keeps going up so our contract prices go up, but our budgets aren’t getting any bigger,” Broockerd said.

Broockerd said if the hiring freeze continues, the agency anticipates it will have to eliminate more service contracts that are critical to park operations and seek more help from volunteers. That could get difficult because volunteer labor already is contributing more than the public may realize. Last year, Broockard said volunteers contributed well over half a million dollars worth of labor in fiscal year 2025.

“So what that means, functionally for us, is stuff that we were historically paying contractors for, like cleaning restrooms, we’ll have to rely more on volunteer services to do that,” Broockerd said.

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Earlier this month, the Corps announced that it would be making some changes to its operations at Clinton Lake in the areas directly managed by the Corps.

A $5 day use fee will still be required for visitors who are using services like swimming beaches and boat ramps, but visitors need to be prepared to purchase those day use permits in different ways. The park is phasing out the use of self-service vending machines that provided user with a permit.

Visitors now will need to purchase a $5 day-use activity pass online or through a QR code, which will be posted at boat ramps and other such high-use areas. The day-use pass will be valid for one vehicle for the day listed and it must match the vehicle’s license plate number. Rangers will verify passes using license plate information rather than printed receipts.

An annual day-use pass can also be purchased for $40 at the Clinton Project Office, which is located on the north shore of the lake near the Clinton Parkway and South Lawrence Trafficway interchange.

The Corps is eliminating the self-service vending machines, known as VenTek pay machines, due to the cost of maintenance of the machines.

“It’s kind of outdated technology at this point,” Broockerd said. “And the maintenance and warranty fees are pretty cost prohibitive to keep those going.”

On the camping front, changes are coming for those who want to camp for free.

At Woodridge Park, camping will no longer be free – meaning there will no longer be free camping anywhere around Clinton Lake. The Woodridge campground will include 15 individual primitive campsites that can be reserved for a fee from April 1 through Nov. 30. People can make their reservations and payments at Recreation.gov.

Backcountry camping will still be allowed within the park year-round, with up to 50 reservations available. The backcountry sites will not be individually identified when you book online and they will be a first come, first served basis. Both individual campsites and backcountry camping will cost $10 per night.

Campsites at Rockhaven Park will also no longer be reserved exclusively for equestrian campers, meaning visitors who bring horses as part of their camping trips, will need to share that space with traditional campers. All sites will be open to any visitors with or without a horse, though still will include equipment to accommodate horses.

The change at Rockhaven Park resulted because the campground has been underutilized. The majority of equestrian utilization occurs in September and October, and the Corps said it cannot justify keeping the campground open for eight months of the year for it to only be used for two.

“You have to live off of a budget, and the amount that we have to pay for contract costs for mowing and electricity and everything else, it’s hard to justify that when our utilization rate is that low,” Broockerd said. “And we’d rather make some of those changes versus having to explore closing the park down.”

There will also be changes in Bloomington East, which previously had four campsites with sewer hookups. Broockerd said as the Corps utilizes more help from volunteers, it had to take those out of the public reservation system and convert them into sites for their volunteers.

“Those are pretty popular sites just because they were kind of our only ones that had full sewer hookups,” Broockerd said. “But in order to kind of pick up some of the slack and some of those (service) contracts, we’ll have volunteers fill in those this summer.”

For people interested in volunteering, Broockerd said to call the Clinton or the Perry Lakes offices – 785-843-7665 and 785-597-5144, respectively – to get connected with the Corps volunteer coordinators.