CLACKAMAS, Ore. – The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will close Rentenaar Road on its Sauvie Island Wildlife Area (SIWA) for six days starting Sept. 5 to facilitate construction of a new levy.

The 3/4-mile road will be closed from Monday Sept. 5 at 10 p.m. through Saturday, Sept 10 at 4 a.m. while crews construct 350 feet of levy needed to create the David Boys Memorial Wetlands in the SIWA’s Eastside Units. Also known as “Boys Lake,” the new development is being dedicated to David Boys, a well-known duck hunter and former president of the Oregon Duck Hunters Association, which is contributing $22,000 toward the cost of the project. Boys died while hunting at Tillamook Bay in 2006.

The levy will be created by raising the road bed in one section of Rentenaar Road three to four feet, creating a 5-acre water impoundment in the Pope hunting unit. The project will restore a wetland that has been completely taken over by reed canarygrass.

Rentenaar Road is located entirely within the SIWA and the closure will not affect access to nearby private properties, according to Dan Marvin, SIWA assistant manager.

According to Marvin, the project is part of a larger plan to form a complex of about 20 acres of new wetlands over the next three years.

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