Still Not Renamed?

This is the 100th post for the Savage Lake blog and my last. Years before we left, in 2014, there was talk about renaming the lake. Our neighbor, Rocky Waite, was particularly inspired to change the name to something less offensive. Apparently, nothing has changed since this 2016 article, "Little Canada’s Savage Lake on its way to a new name," from LillyNews.com. No surprise there.

Downgrading "Lake"

Here's what Ramsey County has to say about Savage Lake, "Because it is divided by the highway, the eastern and western basins of the lake are connected by a pipe that flows from the west basin into the southwest corner of the eastern basin. Although called a lake, Savage Lake is actually a 27-acre wetland. West Savage Lake is 17.4 acres with a maximum depth of 5.9 feet; East Savage Lake is 9.6 acres with a maximum depth of 5.7 feet." At least they have a nice picture of the lake from a view that no longer exists thanks to their "noise wall." 

It was, of course, a lake before MNDOT decided to dump a 1/2 mile dirt "bridge" into the lake, flooding the east side neighborhood when the ice melted and swamped yards and homes that were near the waterline. This was one of Minnesota's many savage attempts to bury native American history under "progress." Bridging the lake wasn't good enough for the state's lake wreckers. In 2011, MNDOT began the freeway construction that would finish off Savage Lake and, ironically, jam up MNDOT's freeway entrance drainage at the same time. Once the lake's spring source was plugged and the freeways were draining into the lake from both ends, on the west side of the lake, the "lake" status was history. Between MNDOT's abuse and the DNR's lethargy, Savage Lake was doomed by a corrupt, lazy, and incompetent pair of bureaucracies and a county and city government that was too busy packing its pockets with development money to bother with protecting the city's natural resources.