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A Landscaped Drainage Ditch is Still a Drainage Ditch

Steven J. Timmer August 16, 2017

N.B. This article has been amended again as Ive learned more about the Methodist Hospital site
depicted in the photo below. See the 8/25 notations.

Summary

The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (the MCWD or just the District) has told the
residents of Edina that the creek as it passes through Edina, and Arden Park specifically, is
impaired. It has low levels of dissolved oxygen and suffers from pollutants from street and
storm water runoff. To ameliorate these conditions, the District proposes to restore the
creek: lengthening it by remeandering it through Arden Park and removing the small pass-
through dam near 54th Street. A consultant for the MCWD made presentations on the science
of the proposed project at a community meeting in July and at a council meeting in August.

The consultant completely failed to mention the large and flow-restricting dam (not a pass-
through like the 54th Street dam) on Grays Bay, the head of the creek. Which is funny, of
course, since the dam is in the MCWDs back yard. In fact, the MCWD operates the dam.

The dam at Grays Bay is a titanic force for the impairment of the creek; the tiny pass-through
dam at 54th Street is not. (Pass through means that the flow of the dam above it is the same as
below it.)

The proposed project is supposed to address creek impairment, but its looking in the wrong
place, and appears prone to failure where implemented.

In the really good old days

Col. Josiah Snellings (the one who has a fort named after him) adult son Will and a friend
canoed up Minnehaha Creek in 1822 to be the first persons of European descent to lay eyes on
the Lake Minnetonka; it wasnt named that at the time, naturally. Indigenous people knew and
lived on the lake, and maybe the creek, for thousands of years before that. Really: there is
evidence of human habitation at the lake since just after the last Ice Age.

Back when Will Snelling first saw the lake, and for most of the rest of the 19th Century, there
was no dam at Grays Bay. In their natural state, water flowed at least some water out of
the lake and the extensive system of wetlands surrounding it into the creek year round.

If you are looking for creek restoration, my friends, this is it. But obviously, this is not what the
MCWD is talking about. If the MCWD said, We want to do a full restoration, Id say, Bring it
on! Lets start with the dam at Grays Bay!
The dam era

Starting in about 1895, the creek has suffered a series of earthen dams and weirs at Grays Bay
that have suffocated it. Theyve killed much of wetlands that acted as a sponge, hydrating or
drying, and functioning as a shock absorber to the flow of Minnehaha Creek. The latest iteration
of these dams is the one installed in 1979-80. It is adjustable. It is operated to maintain the lake
level at a minimum of 929 feet MSL1 (feet above sea level) or just a few inches higher. This is
great for the residents, commercial interests, and boaters on Lake Minnetonka, but it raises
complete hell with the creek.

If the lake gets too high, the MCWD lets the creek roar, regardless of the downstream flooding
and erosion that takes place in, for example, Edina. If the lake gets a little low, well, then they
shut that sucker off, cold. Thats the way it is many months of the year, usually. (As I write this
section on August 8th, the lake has bounced off the 929 foot minimum for the last few days; the
creek has been running between 12 and 20 cfs (cubic feet per second).)

I wish I could tell you that I am exaggerating, but I am not.

It is estimated that the dam at 54th Street was built sometime in the 30s, but nobody seems to
know for sure. It does have the WPA written all over it. At one time, the dam had a weir on top
of it; the sluice gates on top of the dam would have controlled the depth of the water behind
the impounding structure. Back when this weir existed, the dam at 54th Street actually did
control the flow of the creek downstream, but it was long gone by the time we moved into the
neighborhood in 1980.

At the recent meetings, the MCWDs consultant seemed puzzled at the existence of the dam in
the first place: it wasnt for power generation; it wasnt for irrigation, and it wasnt for flood
control. What were the ancients thinking of? Its a mystery!

Let me advance a hypothesis: it was to insure a little water in what became Arden Park when
the dam at Grays Bay, there for forty years by then, denied it. The creek interests were
defending themselves against the lake interests, even then.

The MCWD defends lake interests; you must never doubt it for even a moment. It should be
called the Lake Minnetonka Preservation District.

1
Just for comparison, the Mississippi River elevation just below Lock and Dam #1 (the Ford Dam), near the mouth
of the creek, is 686 feet MSL. The falls account for part of the drop, of course.

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Franz Kafka, a city turns its lonely eyes to you

Presently, we find ourselves defending ourselves, and a little dam that many neighborhood
people love, from a gang of dam-killing zealots who are defending the real serial creek-killer
dam. It sounds like a B-movie.

It is a B-movie.

Minnehaha Creek will not be restored, in any material way, by the proposed restoration. It
wont be because the restoration (and please assume the quotes hereafter) doesnt address
the principal source of the impairment of the creek: the lack of flow from Lake Minnetonka for
many months of the year, principally in the fall and winter. The creek will continue to be
managed as a drainage ditch.

The lack of flow is a serial creek killer for two reasons.

First, if there is no flow through the creek throughout the year, it dries out in spots, and it
freezes solid in the winter where it doesnt. The Watershed Districts expert admitted this
would continue to be the case even if the restoration is done. By itself, this winterkills the creek
every year.

There is only one victim, but the MCWD is a serial killer nevertheless.

At the two recent presentations, the MCWD expert showed slides of a couple of kinds of
aquatic insects that would flourish or at least survive if the restoration is done. But they
cannot survive being dried out or frozen out. This is Aquatic Entomology 101. It is so basic that
even I understand it.

Most aquatic invertebrates (insects, that is) have an annual life cycle. They hatch from eggs on
the stream bottom; they live for a year, munching on the diatoms and other aquatic vegetation,
and then, many of them, in a glorious moment, rise to the surface, shuck their lowly water-
dwelling selves, and fly away. Then, they mate and lay their eggs over the stream and die. And
it starts all over again.

Unless you dry them out or freeze them every year. If you stop the life cycle in the middle, it
wont pick up where it left off when you add water. I invite readers to think about the last time
they saw mating swarms of insects buzzing over the creek (anywhere, not just Arden Park), or
swallows or other birds chasing them. Never? Right? I cant remember a time, and I look.

There is another word for aquatic invertebrates: fish food. Little fish eat the invertebrates, and
bigger fish eat the little fish.
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I thought that the consultants remarks and slides on this subject were incorrect and
misleading.

There is a second, slightly more complicated reason that the MCWD is a serial creek killer.
There are two sources of water for Minnehaha Creek: Lake Minnetonka and street and storm
sewer runoff. The MCWD tells me that in the aggregate, on an annual basis, 20% of the flow of
the creek comes from street and storm water runoff. But it is not the whole story.

In the fall and winter when there is no flow from the lake, this runoff is 100% of the water
entering the creek. This is the salted and sanded effluvium of urban life. With no other flow, the
creek cannot cleanse itself by the dilution of these elements or carry them away. A 100% diet of
this water in the winter is clearly unhealthly to the creek. The MCWD has made some efforts to
filter this runoff, which is good, but most of it remains unfiltered all along the creek. A big
unfiltered runoff spot that looks to continue even if the restoration is done is from 54th Street
itself. (Per my conversation with MCWD representatives.)

Parenthetically, one wonders how much storm water runoff could be filtered with the
$2,000,000 that the MCWD proposes to stick into this restoration. It is kind of a cost-benefit
thing: somebody should ask.

At the council meeting in August when the MCWD made its presentation, there was a resident
who complained during the comment time at the beginning of the meeting about the mucky
water in a stretch of the creek well above either the Mill Pond or Arden Park. Siltation is a
problem everywhere on the creek, and again the culprit is the lack of flow. Recall that the two
dams in Edina do not affect the flow the rate of water passing through; the consultant told us
that, remember? the creek silts up without the help of the 54th Street dam.

Looking for bugs in all the wrong places

I have asked the MCWD for information about the time of year and the flow rate when the data
its consultant used in his impairment remarks, and for any invertebrate studies in areas that
have been restored, such as the Methodist Hospital area. I asked for this information just
after the council meeting on the restoration. I havent received any information yet, but I will
write a follow up if I do.

The Districts consultant said that the riffles that would be installed in the creek in Arden Park
will oxygenate the water. The MCWD made its scientific stand, at the community meeting and
at the council meeting, on the oxygenation of water to promote aquatic invertebrates. Please
keep that in mind while reading the rest of this memorandum.

-4-
But lets consider the two oxygenators that already exist in the area: the Browndale dam and
the one at 54th Street.

When there is flow over the dams, the water cascades over them and over rocks, providing
vigorous oxygenating action.

I decided to see how the invertebrates were doing at these places in the creek. The first place I
went was the dam and riffle below the 54th Street bridge the one that the MCWD wants to
take out. Heres a photo of the riffle just below the dam and bridge, taken on the rainy
afternoon of August 13th.

This is actually a pretty nice riffle; you can see the water flowing over the rocks. The MCWD
reported the flow at 20 cfs.

Heres a photo I took of the same area a couple of years ago.

-5-
I dont know for sure, but Ill bet this is a better riffle than any that the MCWD plans to build.
The water is being oxygenated in the white areas; you can also see the flecks of foam. These are
air bubbles.

In a healthy stream with a decent minimum flow year around, this would be a bug factory. It is
deep enough that it may be one of the last places in Arden Park to freeze.

I waded into the creek on the 13th up to the edge of the riffle to see what I could find. The first
thing one notices is how clean the rocks are. There is very little vegetation clinging to the rocks
for invertebrates to eat.

There arent many invertebrates, either. I didnt turn over every rock, but I turned over dozens
of them: big ones, little ones, in between ones. There were shockingly few insects. If a rock had
an insect, it was usually just one; less than half of the rocks I examined had an insect on it.
There were a couple of sizes of mayfly nymphs (which is a sign that the water is actually fairly
clean, and I was surprised to find them) that I couldnt identify, and the occasional sow bug. I
didnt see any caddis pupae or other kinds of invertebrates. I didnt get any photographs; I just
had my little waterproof point and shoot, and besides, it was raining.

It is worth repeating: in a healthy stream, in a place like this, the rocks would be crawling I
mean that literally with invertebrates.

There is an eerie sterility that is almost unexplainable, at least until you remember that the
MCWD turns off the water for several months a year. But if you cant grow vegetation or bugs
here, it is unlikely that you can grow them anywhere in Arden Park.

Heading upstream a little, here is a photo of the Browndale dam, taken a couple of falls ago.

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Again, notice the white area where the water is coming over the dam, and the foam.

I walked along the section of the creek in Utley Park on the 14 th of August, and although the
MCWD was still reporting 20 cfs out of Grays Bay, the creek seemed up because of the rains,
especially overnight. It sounded great, frankly, as I got closer to the dam. Because of the higher
water, it was difficult to wade in the creek, but I did overturn some rocks and had the same
impression I did below the 54th Street dam: clean rocks with little or no vegetation; I didnt find
any insects on the rocks. Because of the wading conditions, though, I wouldnt claim it as any
kind of representative sample. There was one small tan adult caddis that landed on my camera,
so I obviously didnt get a photo of it.

The same sense of sterility that I got at 54th Street prevailed.

But I have saved the best for last.

I wanted to look at the restored stretch of the creek as it passes by Methodist Hospital, to
look for bugs, etc. The only way to access the boardwalk at the creek at this point is to park in
the Methodist Hospital ramp, so I did that, on August 14th, and then I found that the boardwalk
was padlocked. I paid four dollars for that privilege. Heres a view from the padlocked gate.

-7-
This does not look like the constructed channel of the area (from just a couple of years ago)
that we were shown in slides at the community meeting or at the council. Why is the water so
far out of the channel? With a low flow of around 20 cfs for quite a while, the creek ought not
to be accessing the flood plain. You can see that the current is imperceptible. 8/25: There
wouldnt be current in the flood plain, of course.

I have asked the MCWD and its expert for an explanation for this. 8/25: According to the
MCWD, this is not the creek channel (which frankly is hard to see from the boardwalk,
anywhere, really), but rather is the flood plain. You will remember that the Districts expert
discussed expanding the flood plain in recent presentations.

When standing water (not flowing) freezes, it exerts a nearly unstoppable pressure on any
vessel in which it is contained. If you dont believe me, I suggest that you put a can or glass
bottle of soda in the freezer overnight. (Really, please use a can.) This force could, I think, easily
break the bulldozed trees that will define the channel in Arden Park, or the timber that was
used in the Methodist Hospital stretch. In seems in any event that the constructed channel we
were shown has failed. 8/25: The discussion in the paragraph is not applicable to the flood
plain.

I invite you to imagine what Arden Park will look like if something like this occurs in one or
more of the remeanders. (8/25: Or, more to the point, we get standing water in the flood
plain even when the creek is low.) Imagine not only the mess on the creek, but also the mess in
the park itself when the heavy equipment rolls over it again to repair it. And who pays to repair
it, if anyone does? This is just a capital project for the MCWD; it isnt planning on any
maintenance tail.

When I took the photo above, the creek in Arden and Utley Parks was well within its banks.

I also went over to the other side and parked in the lot of the office building at the intersection
of Louisiana and Excelsior, but it is an impenetrable cattail marsh over there.

I didnt get close enough to the creek to look for invertebrates.

-8-
The 54th Street dam in the crosshairs

Many people, including me, didnt figure out that the dam removal was part of the restoration
deal until the community meeting this past May. By then, it was locked in at the staff level, and
as is so often the case, trying to advocate for meaningful changes at that point is like bouncing
pebbles off of Hoover Dam.

It was surprising, partly, because both the city and the MCWD were in favor of keeping the dam
at the time of the 54th Street and bridge redo, just a couple of years ago. The kayakers wanted
to keep it. In fact, the city was preparing to build a massive arched bridge so that the dam could
be preserved as some kind of kayaking shrine. But times change.

Now, the MCWD says it has a letter from the kayakers saying its okay to take down the dam.
Well, then by all means, lets knock it down.

Wait kayakers? What kayakers? And why do they have more say about this than the people
who live around here? Who died and put the kayakers in charge?

What are the residents and the kids who fish below the dam? Chopped liver? Seriously.

The District says it yearns to reconnect the historic creek. Except for the Mother of All
Disconnections: the dam at Grays Bay. Just as creek people must have been wary of lake
people back in the 30s, some of us are wary of them now.

And who is to say there wasnt some kind of natural falls or steep riffle at the dams location
before it was built? There might well have been, if you examine the terrain. The original dam
and mill site at Browndale were probably sited to take advantage of a natural drop in the creek,
too. Thats why it was a good place to produce power.

Perhaps Will Snelling and his pal had to portage around these areas back in the good old days.
So it isnt such a hardship for the modern kayakers to have to do it.

I also have to observe that in the entire history of Minnehaha Creek, a fish family in the
Mississippi River could never go and visit its relatives in Lake Minnetonka. Thats because of
another big disconnection: Minnehaha Falls. Im sure the District knows about it.

The fish that the kids catch in the fishing hole below the dam are not resident creek fish
(theyre lake species). Fish dont live in the creek in the winter. They come up from Nokomis,
Hiawatha, or the chain of lakes when there is flow in the creek, foraging for food not to spawn
(they arent anadromous). That they are so easy to catch is a testament to the fact they arent
finding food, because it was killed the previous winter, and the winter before that, and the
winter before that. The predator fish, like the northerns, actually dont do so bad, because they

-9-
can feed on the littler fish, like the sunnies, who are there trying to find the almost non-existent
invertebrates.

The big landscape project

I hope by now that at least some of you have come to the conclusion that the restoration (I
cant resist using the quotes, once in a while) has nothing to do with the health of Minnehaha
Creek, but rather is the pipe or perhaps drainage ditch dream of people who are trying to
deflect attention from the real source of the creeks problems.

To me, thats clearly the case.

At the last community meeting, somebody said, Oh, but itll be beautiful! Beauty is in the eye
of the beholder, but perhaps yes, unless you are in the salted or frozen water, or the dried-out
gravel, or a creature, or bird or raptor living in the decimated woods. But the creek will still be
dead. A beautiful corpse. (But maybe not even a beautiful corpse, on the basis of the photo
from the Methodist Hospital area above: this is a whole lot uglier than anything I have ever
seen in Arden Park.) Edina gets a tubing loop when there is actually water in the creek and a
new place for residents to walk their dogs. If it doesnt turn into a malarial swamp.

Really, though, this is just landscaping. Multi-million dollar landscaping.

The city will get about two million dollars out of this deal, a nearly irresistible sum of money.
Whether its leaders can resist it or not seems to me to be a moral test. And what possesses the
MCWD to offer it for the zero return it provides to the creek is beyond me.

Do we just go along to get along, and take the money, or do we engage in a genuine
conversation with the MCWD about improving the health of the creek for the creatures who
actually try to live in it, and all of the communities through which it passes? That would involve
the re-imagining of the management of the Grays Bay dam to provide some consistent
minimum flow.

This is a critical first step, and to me, a sine qua non to discussing other things.

If the MCWD wont do that, there is no reason on Gods green earth why we should consider
giving up the dam at 54th Street.

cont

- 10 -
Please see the second memo in this series:

https://www.scribd.com/document/356625834/Wednesday-on-the-Boardwalk-with-Steve

And now the third:

https://www.scribd.com/document/357462205/Remodeling-Arden-Park

sjt

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