LAKESIDE — Lakeside is moving mountains — of sand.

Mike Mader and a group of the town’s business leaders, organizations and the city have created the Beach Project Partnership to turn Mader’s four-year-old brainstorm of building a beach in town into reality.

It started in 2004. Mader, a member of the Tenmile Lakes Basin Partnership — a group trying to improve water quality in Tenmile Lakes — was giving a lecture in the Loon Lake area in Douglas County and visited the beach on the lake.

“I looked at the beach and it was full of people,” he said.

Kids were playing. People were relaxing in the sand.

He thought Lakeside should have a similar feature at its south lake, so he approached the Coos County Parks and Recreation Department. The county gave him the green light.

Four years later, Mader’s enthusiasm for the idea of putting in a beach at Tenmile Lakes hasn’t wavered.

Standing in the middle of 8,000 cubic yards of sand already giving Coos County’s Tenmile Park and Boat Launch a beachy feel, Mader said his goal is to draw hundreds of people to Lakeside’s beach.

This beach will be more than sand. The new feature will have a grassy area and grass walkway for those who don’t want to get sandy. Mader also is lobbying for an outdoor shower.

Dressed in a wide-brimmed straw hat and rubber boots, Mader looks ready to wrangle sand. If everything goes as planned, he and several volunteers with excavators and excavating companies, will have to move about 15,000 cubic yards more to the beach soon. The actual sand moving started about three weeks ago.

Mader did his fair share of pushing sand around on Thursday, knocking piles of sand down with a Caterpillar excavator. The sand came from just a couple miles down the road, near Lakeside’s new wastewater treatment plant.

The city just completed the first phase of the new plant. The city’s engineer said the mountain of sand piled by the side of the plant would cause damage to the new system if it washed over the retaining walls and into the plant.

Mader had the perfect place for it.

“Everything really fell into place,” Lakeside Mayor Orville Nelson said.

Looking over the work that has been done already, Mader feels like king of the hill. After two and half years for getting permits, some might say he’s earned it.

The permits included one to fill in a small portion of the lake with sand. The partnership also created some wetlands in exchange for filling in some of the lake edge near the beach. Mader said Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay, and Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, were instrumental in getting the necessary permits.

Now the project is facing another challenge: money.

Mader estimates volunteers have poured about $60,000 into the effort. The partnership needs more cash to cover the cost of fuel for the excavators and trucks, and to purchase the fabric that will cover the entire beach area — including covering the lily pads growing in the water in — before sand is piled on top. Mader has reached out to the city’s chamber of commerce for help. Interim chamber President Jonie Reeder said the response has been positive for the most part.

“We polled members (of the chamber of commerce) and most of them were for it,” Reeder said.

Some business owners are not only for it, but a little impatient for it to be finished.

“I think it’s been too long in the making,” 8th Street Grill owner Joe Pepper said.

Pepper believes the beach, once done, will be a big boost to the city’s economy.

“Once we put the beach in there and we start producing events off that beach, it’s going to bring in a lot more tourism,” he said.

Pepper’s restaurant is located literally within shouting distance of the beach site. Sitting outside the grill Friday, Mader divulged his big-picture plan: to have Eighth Street become a bustling hub of stores, restaurants and cafes.

First, though, he will tackle the beach.

“It’s going to change Lakeside,” Mader said. “Come back in a year and I think we’ll be able to hear kids laughing and playing from the beach.”

Staff Writer Jolene Guzman covers Lakeside, Coquille, and Myrtle Point for The World. She can be reached by calling 269-1222, ext. 235; or by e-mailing to jguzman@theworldlink.com.