Update on the finished project from the St Paul Pioneer Press:
This bridge has made all the difference for some island residents
By Bob Shaw | [email protected] | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: June 9, 2018 at 9:00 am | UPDATED: June 12, 2018 at 10:23 am
An old river has learned a new trick in Elizabeth Bell’s back yard — it is flowing.
Her part of the Mississippi River had been stagnant since 1965, when a three-mile channel was blocked to control flooding. But now the water creeps along at a natural pace, thanks to the channel-changers that reopened the waterway.
“We have the river flowing in front of us, and it’s wonderful,” said Bell, the clerk of Grey Cloud Island Township. “This has been the hope for many of us for many years.”
Thanks to the $1.2 million project, fresh water is sweeping though the narrow passageway and cleaning out algae, weeds and floating garbage. For the first time in 53 years, boaters can use the scenic shortcut between St. Paul Park and Hastings.
“We are getting a good flush through the system. You never see changes in water quality that are that abrupt,” said Matt Moore, director of the South Washington Watershed District, which managed the project.
“It’s pretty fabulous.”
In April 1965, officials were panicked by a record-setting flood. They raced to complete hundreds of last-minute preparations, including damming the channel with truckloads of rock and landfill.
The water subsided, but the dam remained.
For decades, the natural waterway was snipped in two, becoming a pair of dead-end inlets.
Last year, the Watershed District tore out the dam and built a two-lane bridge over the water.
This summer, homeowners are noticing the difference.
“Now that we have this wonderful bridge, it makes us part of the river,” said Bell.
The moving water is already altering the shape of the channel, which has remained unchanged for decades.
On one small island, Lee Mullen was trying to keep up with those changes on Tuesday.
Mullen, who lives on the channel, paddled to the island for an erosion-control mission. He pounded wooden pegs into the shoreline, to set up logs to resist the new threat of the moving water.
On another bank of the island, he pointed out how gathering silt was making the water shallower.
“My neighbor said there were going to be changes, and he was right,” said Mullen.
The current has washed away stagnant water, but it has brought in branches, debris and entire trees from the main channel of the Mississippi. Mullen has had to put cables on his dock to hold it against the new current.
“This year, I have seen bass boats come through, making big waves,” he said. His goal for the summer is to get Washington County to install “No wake” signs along the channel.
He has, however, noticed one big advantage to the channel reopening. By his house, the moving water scrubs the riverbed clean, removing weeds that choked his dock last year.
The same thing is happening at the home of his neighbor, township clerk Bell.
“It is wonderful. It is pretty,” she said. “We are no longer on a lake, so to speak.”
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