Public Meeting: Upper St. Anthony Falls lock disposition study

Public meetings scheduled for Upper St. Anthony Falls lock disposition study

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, will host two public meetings to brief the public and gather input for a study focusing on the future disposition of federal property at Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis.

The meetings for the Upper St. Anthony Falls disposition study will be:

Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019 – 6-8 p.m. – Mill City Museum, 704 S. 2nd St., Minneapolis

Monday, Aug. 19, 2019 – 6-8 p.m. – Michael Dowling Urban Environmental magnet school, 3900 W. River Pkwy, Minneapolis.

Both meeting venues are wheelchair accessible. If you need sign language interpretive services, please call 651-290-5426 or email [email protected] by Thursday, August 8, for the first meeting or Wednesday, August 14, for the second meeting.

During the meetings, which will include a presentation on the purpose and scope of the study, residents will have the opportunity to provide official comments and stakeholders may express their interest in owning any of the federal properties. Federal property disposal is carried out by the General Services Administration, according to federal law.

Comments concerning the scope of the study may also be submitted to: District Engineer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, ATTN: Regional Planning and Environment Division North, 180 Fifth Street East, St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-1638.

The St. Paul District held similar meetings in July 2018, when three twin cities locks and dams were to be the subject of the study. America’s Water Infrastructure Act, passed Oct. 24, 2018, directed the Corps to do a separate study for Upper St. Anthony Falls. A second study focusing on the disposition of Lower St. Anthony falls Lock and Dam and Lock and Dam 1 is anticipated to start late 2020. Additional public meetings for that study will be held in 2021.

Save the danged dams!

But what about the asian carp??

Won’t they be infesting Mille Lacs 10 minutes after the dams are removed??

Those locks were shutdown while the coon rapids dam was renovated to be Asian carp proof, that project has been completed for years now. No use for them anymore?

Lots to be talked about with how that changes the landscape for that section of river, and the rather large proposed city park areas in the planning right now.

Older friends of mine say that section will be silted mostly in anyways in several years without the navigation channel there anymore.

I’d love to hear from fisherman what type of input you may have on this or anything related as I typically attend a few of these meetings throughout the year.
I try to stay away from the politics of it and stick to fishing related items.

Thanks for posting BK, I get city emails but I was unaware of this. Is there a sign up for these type things through the Corp site?

LOL! It’s been so long, I don’t recall! I’ll pass it along when another one comes through. It should have the info at the bottom.

Ah yes, the CRD is carp proof. What about everything below the dam? It takes 14 miles of river with a bay at the end for asians to spawn. Seems like they would want to keep it separated.

But Mpls needs the parks. They will get their end goal soon.

They could just make it illegal for carp to travel up to the Coon Rapids dam. Then put a sign on each side of the river just like the signs on pool 4 keeping boats away from the dam.

How many years of talking before anything happens? Are they talking about removing the ford dam to or just st Anthony?

tangler wrote:

Save the danged dams!

Save the dam dams

You in st.paul can have your ice climbing, we over in Mpls gonna get us some whitewater yakking!

I snagged a fish last year on that stretch in my waders at night. Couldn’t get er in and flashlight I keep pretty dim to stay Ninja mode, but it was swimming around me for 10-15 seconds or so cause I couldn’t get ahold of the dang thing and whole time I was saying out loud what the fu#$ kind of fish is this, couldn’t see it’s eyes…..

Kept the scale I believe, still may be in my travel bag, forgot about it till now.

Last time I mapped it it’s around 8miles I believe from CRD to SAF, but if those falls go away I believe both those areas would be drained.

Mike W wrote:

How many years of talking before anything happens? Are they talking about removing the ford dam to or just st Anthony?

This meeting pertains specifically to st Anthony I think, but there are other meetings coming on the Ford dam, and others have already been held. Not sure where they are in the whole process on ford dam.

Deuces wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tangler wrote:</div>
Save the danged dams!

Save the dam dams

You in st.paul can have your ice climbing, we over in Mpls gonna get us some whitewater yakking!

Something for everybody. Except the guy that just kind likes it how it is.

Deuces wrote:

Last time I mapped it it’s around 8miles I believe from CRD to SAF, but if those falls go away I believe both those areas would be drained.

Right, the way I understand it is dam removal affects the pool immediately upstream. So removing SAF drains out the area up to CRD. Draining Ford dam affects pool 1 (hello whitewater yaks and of course TUBES BRO!).

Pool 2 should stay relatively unchanged as long as the Hastings dam remains in place. But I do think upper p2 is going to see significant changes in other ways in the next 10 years anyway.

This is all assuming they figure out a way to deal with decades of toxic sediment built up behind these dams.

tangler wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>MAVERICK wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tangler wrote:</div>
Save the danged dams!

Save the dam dams

You in st.paul can have your ice climbing, we over in Mpls gonna get us some whitewater yakking!

Something for everybody. Except the guy that just kind likes it how it is.

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>MAVERICK wrote:</div>
Last time I mapped it it’s around 8miles I believe from CRD to SAF, but if those falls go away I believe both those areas would be drained.

Right, the way I understand it is dam removal affects the pool immediately upstream. So removing SAF drains out the area up to CRD. Draining Ford dam affects pool 1 (hello whitewater yaks and of course TUBES BRO!).

Pool 2 should stay relatively unchanged as long as the Hastings dam remains in place. But I do think upper p2 is going to see significant changes in other ways in the next 10 years anyway.

This is all assuming they figure out a way to deal with decades of toxic sediment built up behind these dams.

Sediment is the worst pollutant 100x over to the upper Mississippi watershed. To me, I think any dam or feature that slows down water can only help as cities and farms are getting rid of their runoff faster than ever. The sediment that is already there near the dam is probably off the charts in its levels of heavy metals from decades long before the river was cleaned up.

I’d rather see the dams stay. My prediction however is that it will eventually go years and years from now. It’s probably a coin toss whether or not I’ll even be around to see it happen.

Ive only been fishing rivers for a short 30 years. One of the attractions of fishing rivers is they are always changing. Nothing stays the same for very long on the river.

Dam-mit! or undam-dit? either way u r correct tangler, my head is goofed up nowadays. All my precious fishing spots will turn into shallow riffles in that section.

What consequences would there be releasing all those sediments into a pool that’s already catch and release? Most of it get absorbed before it hits P3? Wouldn’t be hard to make P1 C&R as well since very very few people fish it