May 17, 2013

MnDOT & Little Canada Sound Barrier Final Proposal

The city's MN Pass Municipal Concent document was delivered to everyone concerned in February. It's worth reading. Apparently, construction on the Mn Pass lane and the rest of the project should begin this summer.

One of the statements in the document that I thought was most "entertaining" was one that stated:


The idea that this giant sand "island" could have come from anything other than MnDOT's crappy drainage design is a huge warning that some monkey business is likely to result from an assortment of bureacrats passing the blame around until the barrier is built and nothing is done about the sediment damage. Any idiot can see the drainage pipe is completely buried and backed up and that the overspill from the ramp is continuing to deposit crap into the lake. Over the years since the last construction, I've watched the characters from the Watershed District paddle out, measure random stuff and paddle back without anything good coming from their "efforst." Even to them, it ought to be obvious where that sediment is coming from. For about a year, there was a plume of crap spreading out from the pipe after every rainstorm. It only took a year for the pipe to clog and the damage to be pretty much complete. However, in the years I've spent fighting for our disregarded and damaged lake I've found that MnDOT and, especially, the DNR hire specially "talented" idiots with no clue, concern, work ethic, or personal honesty. The best we can do is hope for the best, but expect the worst.

Both ends of the lake, northeast and southeast, have been harmed by excessive freeway runoff. The old docks at the southeast end have been hauled out of the water and twisted out of shape by the obscene amounts of sediment runoff. The new Gopher drainage design just dumps Gopher's parking lot crap straight into the lake. At this rate, we can probably expect the lake to fill in a few years and development to being in the resulting mosquito swamp. Sometimes it feels like we're living in Florida (and that is not a compliment).