DNR Boat Launch at Crosby Farm Park

The City of Saint Paul is working with the National Park Service to create a plan to update and improve the Crosby Farm-Hidden Falls Park and we need to hear from the public about the best way to do this. Since there is a well maintained Mississippi River DNR boat launch at Crosby Farm, we are trying to get in touch with users OR potential users of this park and its facilities so that any future improvements to the park will be in the public’s best interest.

There are two ways we are trying to get in touch with the public:

Via a survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KLPNN2R

And by getting some people in a room together 2-3 times over the next 6 months as part of a focus group. If you, or anyone you know that is a leader or active participant of a group or organization representing boats, watercraft, angling, etc., and would want to provide some in-depth feedback, contact Barett Steenrod at the National Park Service’s RTCA Program at 651-293-8460. Participants in a focus group would first meet in late October or early November.

I vote pool2fool to be our ambassador.

Sure hope others who may have a longer history of fishing down there can be a part of this dialogue, if not I will surely fill that role. Alot easier to get good ideas passed along before the plan comes out than after.

Taking part in the UHT process in North mpls park planning has been very rewarding. Heck, my boat is in the park right now!

Thanks for sharing, Barett. I’ll be in touch as I’m interested in being involved.

This is great – I filled it out. If I were to rank priorities:

1) Enforced rules around trailer parking (ie, don’t let cars use the trailer spots).
2) Ban all kayaks and canoes from using the launch.
3) More bathrooms so P2F doesn’t have to pee on the island and kill the flora.

/Serious about number 1 but slightly joking about 2 and 3.

C’mon guys I’m trying to weasel my way onto a committee here. This is serious adulting, no time for potty jokes.

In all seriousness, P2F is very passionate about the river here in the Twin Cities. He’d be a great ambassador for the IDO community.

Live Web Cam pointed at the ramp.

-J.

Any suggestions made on this forum will not officially get recorded by the city of Saint Paul. Again, I direct you to say what needs to be said on the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KLPNN2R

If you have much to say or want to be more involved, call 651-293-8460 and express your interest in being part of a focus group!

I would highly recommend some of us that actually use the river in this park be active. I used to ice fish Pickerel lake (Lilly Dale) weekly 5-10 years ago and occasion canoe. There was always a gravel ramp and parking lot so This year I thought it would be interesting to see if I could dump the boat in to play around on a quiet TM only lake. After numerous calls to be city who referred me to the DNR who referred me back to the city it appears this is a “carry in” landing even though the DNR lists the launch as a public boat launch. Even if I could get permission to launch the park now looks like Willy Wonka designed the road and there isn’t a single boat launch parking spot. Given some of the options for the park improvements in the 10 part question of the survey I would not assume anything landing releated will even be part of the plan unless we speak up.

I took the survey and noted more parking was a high priority along plowing the snow in the winter time out of all the parking spots and off the boat ramp.

Thanks for your feedback to this forum, Johnie Birkel and fish-them-all. This is exactly the kind of important, candid, user expertise that we hope to collect in the focus groups. There will likely be five different focus groups this fall- non-profits and environmental organizations, land-based recreation & trail users, cultural/tribal parties, educational/school/camps, and boating & fishing/watercraft users including water quality concerns.

Reach out to me if you want me to add yours names to the focus group list.

I would love to be added to the focus group list.

One question I had was, do we need another boat ramp there? Hidden Falls is a mile upriver, Lilydale is 2 miles down river and Watergate is right there already, Ft Snelling and MN also have accesses. I would rather see dollars spent on improving what we have. These ramps are lightly used and I don’t see an additional ramp adding much to the system.

Also, during 5 months out of the year, Crosby would be locked up in ice. What is more needed is additional efforts to keep ramps open in the cold months vs a 4th or 5th ramp on a low traffic part of the river.

If the idea is to repurpose vacant land, I think we can come up with a better use for that area. Dave’s Crosby Farm/Fort Snelling Old Time Zipline Bar and Grill sounds like a great idea.

Dave,

Send me your email address please. I will email you the email poll that I am sending to all the focus group participants about an ideal meeting time.

Thanks,

Barett

Johnie,

Do you want to participate in the focus group? If so, email me and I will reply with the email poll that I am sending to all the focus group participants about an ideal meeting time.

Thanks,

Barett

I just filled out the survey, email provided was b*******[email protected]

Filled out the survey and would also like to participate in the focus group. Thanks for the heads up! PM sent.

I am now on the park master plan advisory committee and will attend their first meeting on Oct 16th. I will share my notes from the meeting here and will bring any feedback from the group to that table.

This is in addition to the watercraft group Barrett mentions. If anyone else wants to join that group please email Barrett and he’ll send you a link to a “doodle poll” which allows you to select which days/times would work best for you.

It’d be great to have some IDO folks at those meetings. Maybe a beer at tiffany’s after

Just heard a rumor that some of the marinas are pushing people/vessels out to find other marinas to slip their boats due to returning the river to its “wild state”.

I haven’t followed up on this as I have other issues that I’m watching on pool 4.

Maybe I’ll do a lil digging on that BK when I’m in the marina next week.

The email provided on the survey goes to the City of Saint Paul, which I do not have access to. I did send you a link using the information I found here on IDO. Did you get the email to the Doodle Poll?

Just bumping this back up to the top. The survey will be open until the end of October and I’d love for as many anglers and motor boat users to share their voice on this. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KLPNN2R

Brian Klawitter wrote:

Just heard a rumor that some of the marinas are pushing people/vessels out to find other marinas to slip their boats due to returning the river to its “wild state”.

I haven’t followed up on this as I have other issues that I’m watching on pool 4.

nhamm wrote:

Maybe I’ll do a lil digging on that BK when I’m in the marina next week.

Well this is certainly alarming, since the “wild river” thing is extremely far from a done deal. And you’d think marinas would want the business as long as they can get it?

Any word at Watergate, @nhamm?

@beachbrian if you have any further details to share, even via PM, that’d be great. Which marinas, etc.

Hi, everyone. I attended two meetings this week and wanted to give an update. Bear with me, this is long.

As a reminder – the survey is open through the end of October The goal is to get as many anglers and motor boat users to take this survey as possible.

Hidden Falls / Crosby Master Plan Advisory Committee, Meeting #1 – 10/16/18 (Links for presentation PDF and meeting agenda.)

This is a general group, not water or watercraft specific. I don’t have a ton to report from this meeting as we didn’t get into too many specifics about water access. We saw a presentation on the history of the park, went over the current state of the infrastructure and ecology, and reviewed some of the big picture goals for the project. I’ll continue to attend these meetings and am happy to bring good ideas from the group. In the linked presentation above you can see some of the preliminary results from the survey, who do suggest that anglers are speaking up.

A fun fact from this meeting: HF/Crosby get 58 million visits a year, more than the Mall of America.

Watercraft Access Focus Group, Meeting #1 – 10/17/18

In addition to staff from the National Parks and City of St. Paul, the group included representation from the Inland Sea Kayakers organization, Minnesota Boat Club (rowing operation on Raspberry Island), For the Rivers, Urban Boat Builders, and the MN Canoe Association. I’m grateful that Barett (@39tries) posted this to IDO and allowed me to join. I was the only one in the room to represent anglers or users of motor boats. I believe every person at the table loved the river as much as we all do. We all have different ideas and priorities but our common passion was very clear and there was nothing contentious in our discussions. Great experience all around.

At this meeting, all independently answered questions about what we thought was working and not working with the current arrangement. The questions were:

-Is the boat launch location ideal?
-Should all craft launch from the same location?
-Should there be separate launches for different classes of craft?
-Where might an ADA accessible launch be placed?
-How much demand is there to launch watercraft?
-If the facilities were improved, would this lead to greater demand?
-What sizes of parties are using the launch?
-What type of watercraft are using the launch?
-How long is the watercraft launch season in the park?
-What’s good about the present river access?
-What’s not good?
-Why does someone launch here instead of other access points?
-Can you think of any barriers to a person fully enjoying the river in these parks?
-What could be built to to make it easier to enjoy?
-What staff could make the park easier to enjoy?
-In what ways do current park users mistreat the park?
-How can the park be designed to or improved to eliminate these bad behaviors?
-What positive behaviors do current users impart on the park?
-How can the park be designed to or improved to reinforce these positive behaviors?
-What programs or activities that involve access to the river should be added?

Then we looked closely at the recommendations that have already been made for both parks (as part of the 2012 Great River Passageway project) and added some additional recommendations based on our answers to above the list of Q’s, making an even larger list. From there, each of us identified our top priorities to create a single list of 12 items. Each of us then rated these from 1-12 with #1 being our top priority. Numbers were tallied with the the lowest numbers rising to the top priority. My notes aren’t perfect and I appear to only have 11 of the 12 items here.

1. Education and programming on paddling and river safety.
2. The proposed NPS headquarters and Environmental Education Center at Watergate Marina (more on this later…)
3. Canoe/Kayak launch with additional paddleshare location at Crosby Farm park.
4. Boat ramp improvements (in general. more specifics later…)
5. Acquisition of the Ford owned property immediately upstream from HF
6. Boat storage for canoes/kayaks
7. Cultural events
8. Add “trailer parking only” signs at HF
9. Add more signage, both educational and wayfinding
10. Add additional canoe/kayak landing areas
11. Manage invasive species (NOT AIS; buckthorn, etc.)

As for boat launch specifics. I think there was a consensus that the motor boat launch and canoe/kayak areas should be more distinguished and separated from one another. One idea that was floated was moving the canoe/kayak areas to the south gate of HF and to Crosby, and keeping HF for motor boats only.

Another issue that came up several times was that of safety with the strong current and back eddy at the current HF ramp location. It’s possible the ramp could be relocated but nobody on the group had any specific ideas. I did mention the cold weather months access at HF is part of its appeal, and I think the current partially helps make that possible. I know Watergate is nice and safe, but it’s also the last launch to open up usually.

Looming large over this is the proposed Environmental Education Center and NPS headquarters at Watergate. This is not a done deal but they are working hard for it. My understanding is that the marina would stay, but that it’d be quite different — potentially no live-aboards or year-round boat storage. Potentially no marine services, etc. Additionally, the VP of the MN Boat Club said they are already in discussions with Watergate to create a harbor with docks for rowers in the backwater/bay directly upstream from Watergate, as soon as next year. They are already using Watergate for launch and shell storage, but they want their own space. So much is up in the air. @Nhamm have you heard any rumblings down at the marina?

Of course the USACE dam disposition study was discussed as well. Nobody seems to know what’s coming down the pike, but the project managers know they may have to adapt this in a big way if the corps decides to change the river as we know it. I still see that as a long shot. I think they’ll close the Ford lock and the corps will be less involved, but the dam itself will stay. If for nothing else then to hold back all the toxins stacked up in the sediment behind the dam. Sounds like a disaster.

That’s about all I can remember right now. Questions welcome. I’ll report back after the next meetings as well.

This is great stuff man. Thanks for sharing.

Now that i know my northside is gonna get a fish pier at some point i can focus little more onto this. Not that i have fished it much, but i guess the only section i do know pretty well is this section.

#1 priority and maybe i missed it so far but the shorefishing!! Guess the shore guy in me is really hoping that once the park does get revamped they dont extend that crappy gate there is now all the way to waters edge. Seems in the pdf you provided it would, and that loses out on the first seam entirely, but most of the eddy behind it as well, at least in higher water. So acquiring or getting permission to use that shoreline all the way up to the riprap would be great.

Separate launches absolutely, with proper signage for the kayak, canoe crowds. Can see fair # of DAs pulling up to boat ramp and be like “dude this a big ramp for like kayaks man, righteous” and then after tying off their man bun for 5 min they start to pack up their mineral waters and bear crap granola bars blocking 10 fisherman in their path. Yeah, i went there

Getting your ideas in at this stage in the game is really crucial. Once that master plan comes out it gets tough to start changing things around, it can and does but now is the time to be heard. If you need a partner going in there, or maybe there are a few IDOers already on committee, id love to go represent.

As far as marina goes have no clue. Barely been down there lately and when i have its after hours.

The big boats are certainly being put on shore and winterized and stuff starting to stack up but far as i can tell stuff is normal. Have until the end of this month to be out so hoping ill catch someone down there by end and have a chat.

nhamm wrote:

#1 priority and maybe i missed it so far but the shorefishing!! Guess the shore guy in me is really hoping that once the park does get revamped they dont extend that crappy gate there is now all the way to waters edge. Seems in the pdf you provided it would, and that loses out on the first seam entirely, but most of the eddy behind it as well, at least in higher water. So acquiring or getting permission to use that shoreline all the way up to the riprap would be great.

Glad you mentioned. My understanding is that fence is owned/maintained by Ford since it’s their private property on the other side, so not really under the park’s control. However you’ll see #5 on the priorities list is acquisition of that property. If it becomes part of the park, access should be strong. Looking more closely at the potential goals for that portion, I see they are specifically mentioning additional parking and a dog park on that chunk of land. That would mean greater access, but potential conflicts for shore anglers if there are 20+ dogs romping around at all times. Seems like a horrible place to encourage dogs to interact with the river given the way the current rips through.

One person at the meeting suggest that shore fishing be limited to designated areas and I spoke up in strong opposition to that. They were complaining about hooks and litter. I reminded them that A) This is public land; B) Enforcement would be impossible; C) A lot of the debris you find on the shore line was littered by someone miles upstream. Fish hooks and lures wash up from snags that happen to anglers in boats, etc.

A fishing pier was also suggested. I raised questions about the feasibility of the kinds of fishing that typically happens on a pier around here (bobbers, still fishing) on a river with current. Nick I’d be curious to hear more about the north side pier project.

nhamm wrote:

If you need a partner going in there, or maybe there are a few IDOers already on committee, id love to go represent.

I think @jake28 (AUTO5) was planning to attend this last meeting and couldn’t make it. I’ll keep you posted on future meeting dates.

Buying up land is always on the list of things to do but isn’t always a reality. That would seem to be a huge expensive hunk right there

Opposition to shorefishing, that’s scary. I’ll definitely want to be a part of that next round. Your attachments say next is Novemberish?

Yep, November. I’ll shoot you a PM w/ some contact info so you can get looped in on the scheduling.

To be clear — the comment was from one person who primarily works with young kids in the park and the only concerns were in regards to safety. I think she understood my perspective and that idea was not advanced for further discussion.

I see your point on the land purchase — that said, we have a land owner (Ford) who no longer uses the land, and there are pretty strict regulations on what that land could potentially be used for. Potential buyers are probably… St Paul, MN, or National Parks. Ford might just be ready to move on. Who knows?

pool2fool wrote:

I see your point on the land purchase — that said, we have a land owner (Ford) who no longer uses the land, and there are pretty strict regulations on what that land could potentially be used for. Potential buyers are probably… St Paul, MN, or National Parks. Ford might just be ready to move on. Who knows?

Get your checkbook out,,,,,,,

https://www.ryancompanies.com/news/ryan-companies-awarded-development-ford-site

HRG

Hot Runr Guy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>pool2fool wrote:</div>
I see your point on the land purchase — that said, we have a land owner (Ford) who no longer uses the land, and there are pretty strict regulations on what that land could potentially be used for. Potential buyers are probably… St Paul, MN, or National Parks. Ford might just be ready to move on. Who knows?

Get your checkbook out,,,,,,,

https://www.ryancompanies.com/news/ryan-companies-awarded-development-ford-site

HRG

Not the same site. Ryan companies is developing the site where the plant was, across the River boulevard. The site being discussed here is an additional lot on the river side of the street. It’s currently home to dilapidated buildings and a large parking lot that’s used as a state fair park & ride. Because of the city’s restrictions on the types of buildings that can be built right on the shoreline, where this property is, it’s not of value to the developers — or they would’ve already purchased it.

Attachments:

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   ford.jpeg
   

Thanks!

HRG