From Today’s Pioneer Press:
A walled-off waterway on the Mississippi River is being reopened — cleaning the water and giving boaters a new passageway to Grey Cloud Island.
The $1.8 million project involves building a bridge on Grey Cloud Island Drive in St. Paul Park and dredging a new 45-foot-wide channel.
Re-establishing the natural flow through the channel will benefit the wildlife along two miles of shoreline, said Matt Moore, director of the South Washington Watershed District.
“That is the primary goal of restoring the channel,” he said. “The navigation is a secondary benefit.” But navigation under a new bridge will be the most visible benefit to local boaters.
The passageway was shut off during the record-breaking flood of 1965. “That was the big one,” Moore said.
Officials watched in alarm as the river rose to endanger homes and businesses, so they sealed off the channel by dumping truckloads of rock into the river.
That solved the immediate crisis but created another set of problems.
The former waterway was nipped off, creating two dead ends. Those sloughs remain stagnant, and the water is often coated with algae.
In addition, no boats can pass through. Owners of power boats, canoes and kayaks can no longer float from the main channel of the river near St. Paul Park to the inland side of Grey Cloud Island. Scum-covered and without any public access, the dead-ends are barely used by boaters.
Moore said the district plans to dredge a 45-foot-wide channel reconnecting the waterway. He said a vessel up to 21 feet long and 6 feet off the water will be able to pass through.
Once the water is flowing again, the fresh supply of water will eliminate the excessive algae.
Moore said the $1.8 million project is being funded by the watershed district, Washington County and the state.
He said work on the project will begin next year and should be finished by the end of that summer.
