Does it still matter?

 

A friend saw this article from the Star Tribune and sent me this picture from that short piece.The picture looks like it could have come from our old backyard. This isn't even close to the first time this issue has come up. One of the many motivations we had for selling that house was the constant abuse and disregard the city and state demonstrated for that small, historic lake; reclassified as a "watershed" to make the abuse "legal." MNDOT trashed the lake, first with total disrespect in the 1970s by "bridging the lake" with thousands of tons of dirt dumped on the frozen lake to be used for the freeway construction in the spring. That caused flooding in the lower houses on the east side of the new freeway, buried a good bit of the underground water supply for the lake, poured pollution into the lake, and quickly demonstrated the traditional European invaders' disrespect for anything held sacred by Native Americans. Just that act makes a feeble attempt to rename the lake for political correctness another addition of insult to the injury. 

While we lived on Lakeshore Drive, from 1997 to 2015, we saw countless demonstrations of how little the state of Minnesota and the city of Little Canada cared about that once-beautiful little lake. When we first moved into our home, which had been owned by a goober who used the backyard as a practice course for drunken Bobcat parties and who regularly plowed refuse from his "landscaping company" down the hill into the lake, there was still some life in the lake. My grandson and I built a small deck from our yard, out of fallen trees the previous owner had littered all over the shoreline, and we'd watch catfish, perch, and other small fish bob for pieces of bread he'd toss into the water. 

The city actually, illegally, hired a UofM prof and a pack of nitwits to poach Canadian Geese from the lake for several years before residents (loudly led by Ms. Day) embarrassed them into stopping that practice.

That first summer, the local high school maintenance department dumped a few hundred gallons of toxic chemicals into the school's drainage ditch, which made its way to the lake and killed hundreds of fish. Of course, neither the DNR, the Ramsey County Watershed District, or the state's EPA bothered to even reprimand the school's employees and no thought whatsoever was given to repairing that damage. From then until we left, the only fish we ever saw in the lake were minnows and few of them.  At least one business on the north side of our portion (west) of the lake regularly dumped manufacturing chemicals into a drain that kept that end of the lake coated with petroleum rainbows. 

In 2008, the Watershed District  engineers "designed" a new drainage system that, accidentally, lowered the lake level by at least two feet. As a demonstration of how "complicated" determining where that drain level should have been set, my 9-year-old grandson designed an experiment that we documented for his grade school using string, a level, and a tape measure.

MNDOT "designed" various freeway drainage systems that filled the lake with sand, salt, and roadway contaminates peaking (during our time there) with the 2010's expansion of the freeway and a drainage ditch from the south-going Little Canada Road freeway entrance that immediately filled the meager remains of the spring and turned the lake from a feeble remainder of a lake (that once had a "deep end" that exceeded 8') into a rapidly filling swamp with no spot on the lake that couldn't be walked across. Of course, the slackers who get paid way too much to prevent this kind of thing at the state's EPA, the DNR, and the totally worthless Watershed District bureaucrats were busy cleaning their fingernails or counting the money that appeared on their desks in unmarked brown paper bags as that all happened. (After 18 years trying to defend our backyard lake from all of those worthless deadbeats, I have no respect for any of those departments or their employees.)

 For us, the final insult-to-injury nail-in-the-coffin that convinced us to sell our beloved home was the pointless, overpriced, dysfunctional "noise wall" that served to prevent freeway traffic from seeing the eyesore our lake had become. There is no acoustical justification, even based on MNDOT's own guidelines, for a 15' wooden wall placed hundreds of feet from the nearest property it is intended to "protect." COVID did a far more effective job of lowering the health-endangering noise levels (averaging 91dBA in our backyard during the summer and fall of 2014) from I35E in our neighborhood by reducing traffic massively for 2 years. However, as the wall was being constructed MNDOT got serious about directing freeway contaminants into the lake and the south end of the west side of the lake rapidly filled in and became so overrun with sand, salt, and silt that one of our neighbor's dock was literally lifted out of the water. Waterlilies flourished as the lake level dropped.

One of the reasons we ended up staying in Minnesota for the past 28 years was my wife's dream of living on a lake came true when we found our Lakeshore Avenue home in early 1997 just before my promised transfer back to Denver was due. We kept a kayak and a canoe near our dock and used it regularly on that lake, even as it was being overwhelmed by pollution, invasive plants, and noise. We defended the migrating birds who visited our lake from neighbors and government officials. We regularly argued for the preservation of the lake and its wildlife, usually unsuccessfully. A few of our neighbors were also strong advocates, including Rocky Waite (the name change advocate in the Trib article) and a few were obviously oblivious to the lake and did not consider its existence to be of value. A name change is the least the state owes this lake and its history.

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.

Is This Irony?

The Ramsey-Washington Watershed District has an entry about the botched-up drain they installed in 2003 and modified several times before getting it as close to right as they ever do anything: Savage Lake Outlet Improvement.They sarcastically claim, "Prior to the project, the outlet from Savage Lake was highly susceptible to plugging, which caused extended elevated water levels in the lake. City maintenance crews frequently removed sticks and other debris from the outlet.

"During the winter of 2003-04, we installed a new outlet structure that would operate at full system capacity even if 80 percent plugged. The outlet stabilizes normal water levels in the lake and allows flood levels to subside much sooner than before."

One of the advantages of getting to review your own work is that you don't have to even pay lip-service to facts or reality.

Postscript: 2018

We haven't been back to Little Canada, to our old neighborhood since we moved in 2015. Last Monday, after spending a day with friends and family, we decided to take a "tour" of the place we lived for 18 years; the longest period of calling a place home in our lives. A lot had changed, a lot stayed the same, and some of it was unrecognizable. Passing by our lake, via 35E at rush hour was startling. Traffic is almost exponentially greater, noisier, and dirtier. Clearly, either the increased lane-count has attracted commuters who once took a different route or development north of St. Paul is really ramping up. I have no idea when Google took the photo [below], but I can guarantee it was not on a Monday at 3PM.

The biggest reason we bought our home on Lake Shore Avenue was the lake; Savage Lake. We liked the yard and the privacy. I loved the giant garage. Elvy loved the weird layout of the house and the potential of the basement for workspace for her art. We both loved the idea of having a home with a lake in the backyard. I realize that Minnesotans discount bodies of water like Savage Lake as if they are just holes in which to dump sewage, but the rest of the country (especially west) has a different perspective on precious water resources. Not different enough to stop pissing, shitting, and wasting their water, but at least slightly more cognizant than Minnesota where we have so much water we delude ourselves into thinking it is endless. If you look at the past entries in this blog, you'll see that we spent almost as much time in our backyard enjoying our "lake" as we did inside hiding from winter. Before we moved to Little Canada, I had never thrown a party in my life. Because of Savage Lake, we had a wedding reception, annual Little Canada Days fireworks parties, sledding parties, a college graduation bash, and dozens of get-togethers in our backyard that always included some aspect of being on the lake in boats, skis, snowshoes, sleds, or just sandals or winter boots. We hiked the lake in the winter, boated it in the summer, and enjoyed it every day we lived in Little Canada. In the end, it was the thing we both knew we would miss the most about our old home. It still is.

When we lived in the Cities, we regularly compared our industrial noise neighborhood to friends' homes and our daughter's home in Dinkytown. Other essays in this blog talk about the unhealthy expansion of noise in our old backyard and I won't beat that horse more more in this essay, but if you are fooling yourself into believing that you can live with 85dBA-and-above-noise on a constant basis you already need medical assistance.  Today, there are four lanes (two in each direction) on 35E that didn't exist when we left the Cities. If traffic expands to fill the available space, as it usually does, that probably means the noise level in my old backyard has risen by 3-8dBASPL.

NOTE: You may not be familiar with the usual verbiage used in discussing noise levels. "dBASPL" means deci (1/10) Bells (a measure of acoustic loudness) A (A-weighted to approximate the sensitivity of human hearing to sound at various loudness levels) and SPL (sound pressure level, a necessary addition because decibels are used for a variety of energy measurements from electrical to light to touch and so on). Forgetting the weighting aspect for a moment, the threshold of human hearing is 0dBSPL and the generally accepted threshold of pain is around 120dBSPL. The aspect of this specification I want to point out here is the A-weighting. Our hearing mechanism is fairly insensitive to low and high frequency sounds at low volume. A-weighting is intended to compensate for human hearing nonlinearity for sounds below 55dB (unweighted). So, anytime you see a specification like "90dBA" you should understand the "A" is being abused for some reason. The reason, in the case of sound barriers, is that low frequencies pass through most of the barriers constructed today as if that barrier is insignificant. So, using A-weighting allows the person doing the testing to discount the irritation factor of loud low frequency sounds artificially. Also, most of the loudest vehicle noises are low frequency sounds. The appropriate weighting system to use at the noise levels presented in the Savage Lake neighborhood would be C-weighting, but that would expose the ineffectiveness of the noise barrier and the health hazard residents are exposed to. 

There are lots of technical articles written about noise barriers, but "Building the Wall" probably does as good a job as any at explaining how poorly those structures work for the majority of the neighborhoods they are supposed to help. This classic and simplified description of where that 3dB of noise reduction comes from should be startlingly and discouragingly illustrative of how useless those expensive walls are at any practical distance. Flexible barriers do absorb a little noise energy, but not enough to produce much noise reduction in practical terms. The 6dB justification MNDOT and lobbyists use to justify these installations is purely political and economic. The real argument is "would you rather look at traffic or a wall?" It's not my backyard now, so I can't answer that question. I do know that at least one of our neighbors moved away a year after we left, partially because the noise became intolerable for them.

When we lived in the Cities, we would often visit friends homes or our daughter's home in Minneapolis and enjoy the relative quiet of other parts of the urban environment. Today, even the quietest of those places seems almost intolerably noise to us and, I imagine, our old backyard would be deafening; and I'm not exaggerating. Exposure to noise levels of 85dBSPL and above is a known health hazard. So, while we miss the lake we loved and the neighborhood that was our home, losing almost 30dBCSPL of noise from our backyard was a necessary sacrifice. The reason I decided to add this comment to the long-neglected and nearly-abandoned Savage Lake Blog is that the only reason this human abuse happens is that people believe there is nothing they can do about it. That is not true, but humans/citizens will have to become involved in their local, state, and federal government to fix it. Trump and the Trumpanzees imagine they can turn back the clock to the 1950's and everything will revert to the "good old days." Good luck with that, dummies. Change and the future will happen, regardless of how often Fox News tells you it won't. The country can change for the better or worse, but it will never go back to what we imagined it was 60 years ago.

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).

Winter Lake Status

I can't explain why, but one of the things we love about our abused and battered little lake is walking on the ice on a moderate winter day. There is something oddly cool about making a lap or two around the island when the sun is out, the lake is frozen solid, and traffic is blasting past us, oblivious of our presence. It's not quiet. It's miles from pastoral, but it is oddly peaceful. A little more snow and the lake would be cross-country ski-able. A little less and, I guess, you could skate it. Before the winter hammer fell on Last Saturday, we were out on the lake enjoying the moderate temperature and windless day.

A few years ago, this was a 3' diameter concrete
culvert. Today, it's packed with freeway sediment.

The lake's level is as low as it has been in years. So low that I was able to take some pretty pointed pictures (say that 3X fast) of the damage MNDOT's past "engineering" has done to our lake. For example, smack in the middle of this shot is what remains of a drainage culvert MNDOT used to drain water (and massive quantities of sediment) from the south-bound I35E Little Canada Road freeway entrance. When we moved to Little Canada in 1997, this drainage culvert was completely exposed and the lake was approximately 4' deep about a canoe paddle's length away from the culvert. That general condition and relative height stayed constant for years (discounting the catastrophic lake level drop when the Watershed District screwed up the water levels at the end of the 1990's) until the freeway redesign a few years ago.

This picture gives some perspective on how large the
sediment "beach" is, at least the above water line.

For a couple of seasons, all of the freeway entrance ramp drainage was routed through this culvert and over the edge of the ramp's curbs until the drainage culvert was filled with sediment. The rest of the silt and sediment is simply poured off of the ramp into the lake, resulting in a dramatically eroded lake shore and an increasingly steep bank. At one time, this was the deep end of the lake by several feet. There was some source of water movement that always kept the ice either thin or clear about 30' west of this point, but after the freeway redesign the massive influx of sediment filled in that source of current and helped allow the nearly complete coverage of water lilies by making the lake shallow enough for them to take root. The sediment shelf is completely above the water-line right now and anyone can walk out and examine the damage done. You can also see the erosion effect by looking at the freeway fence posts. The concrete post footers are being rapidly exposed as the lake bank vanishes from runoff erosion.

This was my first opportunity to see the Little Canada-funded Gopher Electronics parking lot drainage plan and I'm not particularly impressed. We gave this design a shot on the drainage pipe at the south end of our property about 12 years ago and it worked for a season, but was quickly overwhelmed by the quantity of sediment pouring into the lake from Lake Shore Ave and the sediment "island" has continued to expand since. This design is not a "trap," but is more like a temporary diversion with a little landscaping.

Sediment traps are either holding ponds, like those we see along the eastbound sections of the new I694 design, or complicated concrete affairs that have to be regularly maintained. Any man-made system requires maintenance and that is often the fatal flaw in major construction designs. The designs are fine, but the follow-up is insufficient or non-existent. Supposedly, we have traps like the ones illustrated in the mechanical drawings (on the left) for all of our street drains, but if no one cleans the traps they were one more waste of taxpayer dollars.

It's not like all of this hasn't been reported to the city, county, and state in the past, but if you'd like to see what's really going on with our lake, now is the time to take a walk on the ice. Worst case, the lake is about 4' deep at the deepest spot right now. The water levels are probably 2' below where they were early last spring.

If we get the noise barriers and the construction of those barriers doesn't do more harm than good, the quality-of-life value of our lake could improve dramatically. It would be nice to get some of this street and freeway drainage problem solved at the same time so that the lake just doesn't slowly fill with sediment and become a mosquito breeding ground.

Good Neighbor Award

Our neighbors, John and Sue Bibeau, recently sold their home (2666 Lake Shore) and moved to Brainerd. John and Sue have been some of the best neighbors and friends we've had in our lives. Not only will they be missed because of their kind and generous natures, but their contribution to the neighborhood has been immense.

John has lived in Little Canada and on Lake Shore for most of his life. He has seen the neighborhood in good times and bad. John and Sue were always involved in community events and a great source of insight into the city's history.

For the two years that Little Canada paid for our lake's lily spraying permits, John volunteered his time and energy to man the pumps for two days each year. Because of that, our lake has had a chance to make a come-back and it has been possible to enjoy boating on that precious resource and the view from our back yards was dramatically improved with a little water visible on the lake. "Fixing" the lake is a long way in the future, but that wasn't a bad start.

John was always quick to lend a hand at any project that might improve the neighborhood. We particularly appreciated his willingness to help with the "project" that our home turned out to be. Without their patience and assistance, I suspect we might not have managed to turn our place around and make it livable. We will miss John and Sue a lot and will try to welcome our new neighbors as generously as John and Sue did for us.

Variations on the Noise Wall

Apparently, the Little Canada City Council is doing an end run around the will of the property owners on Australia Avenue. The owner of Gopher Electronics convinced the council that his property will somehow be damaged if there isn't a line-of-sight from the freeway to his building and that his tiny building provides ample noise protection for the people who live on the streets "blocked" by his building. So, the council is looking at (or has already decided on) shrinking the length of the northwest side of the proposed noise wall for his benefit.

Obviously, this completely eliminates the value of the noise wall for 2/3 of the residents on the west side of the freeway. As the DOT's own literature states, effective noise barriers must:

• must be tall and long with no openings;
• are most effective within 61 meters (200 feet) of a highway (usually the first row of homes);
• a barrier should be at least eight times as long as the distance from the home or receiver to the barrier;

There was no indication of this conversation in the currently posted 10/24/2012 meeting notes, but a resident who attended that meeting said there was quite a bit of off-line discussion about the "variation."
 Reducing the length of the barrier will effect the efficiency of the barrier for far more than just the citizens "protected" by the Gopher building. It will eliminate much of the barrier's effect for most of us on the west side.Since Gopher Electronics has been accused of being the cause of a lot of the lake's degradation over the years, it is hard to see why the city would be suddenly concerned about that business' input regarding the neighborhood.

There is still some time for public input before this project is turned over to the bureaucracy. "The Administrator reported that MN DOT is requesting that the City hold a public hearing on the MN PASS project, and staff is recommending the hearing be held on Wednesday, November 28th at 7:30 p.m. The Administrator pointed out that last evening MN DOT held an open house on the project at City Hall. The issue of sound walls was discussed with residents, and there are some areas abutting the project where property owners favor additional sound walls and some not. The Administrator noted that the Heather Oaks property owners abutting the project do not support the addition of a sound wall, but would like to have additional landscaping installed." Stay tuned, this "discussion" isn't over yet.

The fact that none of the council members or the mayor are opposed in the upcoming election is probably bad news for the city. It says we're either completely satisfied with city government, we're completely apathetic about our homes and community, or we're afraid to raise out heads up because they might get shot off.

I-35E MnPASS Noise Wall

This is a copy of the letter I sent regarding the noise wall plan and the meeting the city will be having regarding this proposal on October 23 at the Little Canada City Center:

From:     T.W. Day [mailto:twday60@comcast.net]
Sent:    Sunday, October 14, 2012 12:39 PM
To:    'kevin.walker@state.mn.us'
Cc:    joel.hanson@ci.little-canada.mn.us'
Subject:    Little Canada I-35E MnPass Noise Wall

I am a property owner on the west side of Savage Lake, directly across from I35E and north of where the noise barrier on the east side ends.

---------------
Thomas Day
2660 Lakeshore Avenue
Little Canada, MN 55117-1320
twday60@comcast.net
651/415-2992

I want the noise barrier.

Comments:
The noise barrier will, as I suspect the state knows, will be of limited value in regard to the unhealthy noise levels the freeway expansion has created for our property. When the freeway was expanded and the barrier installed on the east side of the freeway, the noise level in our backyard and inside our home rose significantly (approximately 5-10dB, depending on the time of year and day). The state's "acoustician" made some wild and unsubstantiated claims that we would not see more than 3dB of noise increase after the freeway redesign and none of those assumptions made much sense, even based on the information that you'd hope anyone involved in freeway design would have available (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/noise/noise_barriers/design_construction/keepdown.cfm).

I have measured the noise level in my backyard at various times of the day, week, year, and since we moved here in 1997 and found that the noise levels have regularly exceeded OSHA safety guidelines for industrial work spaces. Before the freeway expansion and construction of the east side noise wall, my spring measurements (typically worst case in my measurements) were around 80dBA and 86dB unweighted. After the freeway expansion those measurements increased to 87dBA and 93dB unweighted. Doing an extended noise study during those worst case periods found peaks of 98dBA from the middle of our back yard.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the general noise from the freeway was more-or-less unfocused before the east side noise barrier. After that barrier was constructed, the noise levels clearly increased as vehicles approach and pass that reflection source. The fact that noise generators can easily be localized when the are near the barrier proves that the reflection from the east side barrier has increased the noise level on our property. Something the previous "engineer" claimed would not happen and something that any competent acoustician would expect to be a problem.

For people who live within the first 100 feet of the barrier, I would expect a dramatic improvement in noise levels after the proposed barrier is constructed. For those of us who live considerably further from the freeway, I doubt that we'll see significant improvement. An improvement on this plan would be to add absorption to the barrier design. The easiest and cheapest way to do that would be to include a budget for enough evergreen trees to provide year-around full coverage of the noise-generating area. That was part of an earlier noise abatement plan and should be included in this plan. Even if the trees do not provide much effect early on, the larger they grow the more effective they will become and they will not require maintenance if they are planted on the lake-side of the barrier. This can only be good visually and sonically for the embattled residents around our lake.

City Council Meeting Notes 8/10/2011

ELECTRONICS/ SAVAGE LAKE:
Rocky Waite appeared before the Council asking the status of the sedimentation pond on the Gopher Electronics property. Waite noted that he raised this issue with the Council 3 ½ years ago. Waite felt that the
existing situation is causing harm to Savage Lake. The City Administrator reviewed an August 1st email wherein it is reported that the Watershed and Gopher Electronics is working out a costshare agreement to address the situation.

Waite again noted that it has been 3 ½ years and nothing is done yet. He pointed out that a condition of construction of the Gopher Electronics building was that there be a sedimentation pond to filter run-off before it went into the lake.

The City Administrator reported that there was a delay by the Watershed in moving forward on this issue, but it is now proceeding. Initially there was some discussion on who was responsible, but the Watershed is agreeable to a cost-share agreement with Gopher Electronics. The Council asked that the City Administrator request a timetable for completion from the Watershed as well as progress updates.

Waite indicated that he would provide the City with copies of minutes that reflect the requirement that Gopher Electronics maintain a sedimentation pond on their property. Blesener asked that Waite submit that information to the City Administrator.

REQUEST TO RENAME SAVAGE LAKE AND SAVAGE LANE:
Waite reported that he is a Choctaw Cherokee and that he is offended by the name of Savage Lake and Savage Lane. Waite requested that theCity provide him with assistance in getting these names changed.Montour stated that while the City would have some control over a streetname, he did not believe the City had any authority to rename a lake.

Keis and Boss stated that they never associated these names as derogatory terms. Waite felt that the process to change the names should start with the City and asked for any assistance that the City could provide. Montour stated that while he appreciates Waite’s position, he felt that such a request should come from people living on Savage Lake and/or Savage Lane. Waite felt that it was a violation of his civil rights to have this name in place.

Last Spraying

We received our permit to spray the lake for water lilies one last time (on the city's buck) early this week. We need at least two dry days for Rodeo to do it's work and the weather report for the weekend seemed sort of undependable up until this morning, so I didn't get the paperwork into the DNR in time. I hope to try again next week. This has been an over-full week for me as it is.

I hate to toss in the towel, but I think this labor of frustration and solitude is about to end. I named this website/blog the "Savage Lake, Little Canada, Minnesota Lake Owners' Association" with the hopelessly optimistic goal that there might actually be such a group in the near future. The website has been around since May of 2008 and we're no closer to being that organization than we were when I wrote the first entry, "Getting Started." Someone said, "You get the government you deserve." With that in mind, I think we are getting the mosquito infested swamp we deserve as we passively let this small body of water deteriorate into mess it has become. I loved our little lake a few years ago. Today, it has become a liability.

It is nothing but painful to me to look out of my backyard and see the lake we once enjoyed become the disaster the Watershed District so desperately and incompetently wanted it to be. Not that many years ago, we canoed this lake almost every summer evening. On muggy days, we'd paddle to the interior of the lake to avoid bugs in the backyard. Now, the lilies have made fine nesting homes for every kind of biting insect that lives in Minnesota and the lake is the last place you want to be when the damn things are out hunting. One of our neighbors has been trying to sell his home for a while and at least one prospective buyer stated that they lost interested in the home because of the freeway noise. A more interested buyer would probably have second thoughts after experiencing the insect "wildlife" some evening. Our backyard is worse than our front yard and simply crossing the street is enough to reduce the need for bug repellent considerably.

John Bibeau has, again, volunteered to help spray the lake this last time. I'll use this website to post when that will be as soon as we set a date with the DNR. After that, I'm going to shut the site down. I'm too old to bang my head against a closed door.

A New, Bigger Lake

 It's been a few years since we've had this much water in the lake. Our rain gauge said we got almost 5" this morning.

When I built this dock, somewhere around 10 years ago, the water level was so low I could walk all around it during construction. A year later, I had to chase the dock down because it floated into the middle of the lake after a big rainstorm.  Five or six years ago, I anchored the dock to the awing frame in case we ever got a major lake-fill again. Looks like it worked.

I'd say the water is about 6" above the historic shoreline. It looks like more from the pictures, but the water is only about 1-4" deep between the dock and the beach. My wife has some potted plants in the water (which you can see the tops of to the left of the dock about 8') and all the pots and most of the plants are almost submerged.

We had a pretty good sound and light show this morning, too. All of the pets crowded onto the bed about 4AM, so I got up to watch the lightening. Some of the louder shots were close to 1,000 feet of our house (based on the timing between the light and the sound). I'm amazed we still have power in the neighborhood.

Where We Are Today

I stopped by the city offices last week to look at the plans for the upgrades to I35E between Highway 36 and the I35E and I694 rats' nest, but the city doesn't have anything to show, yet. Supposedly, we're going to be getting some noise abatement design into the work, but based on the amateur work I saw from the state with the "analysis" of the impact on our homes with the last work on that roadway, I don't expect much value from that. Honestly, if one of my Musical Acoustics students turned in a final project that was as poorly written and analyzed, I'd fail him.

[Note: The clear weather pictures above are from early June and the overcast pictures were taken 6/21/2011.]
The lake water height has been at historic levels almost all spring, thanks to an extremely wet spring. That hasn't, however, had much impact on the lily growth. It is gratifying to see that last fall's Rodeo spraying has given us some clear water this spring, which indicates that we could get control of this pest weed if the DNR weren't an obstacle and the Water Shed District made some sort of useful contribution. Unlike this time last year, we've been able to canoe the lake in the evening and, other than the dramatic increase in mosquitoes, it's nice to have some of our lake back.

The milfoil is another issue. I found some minnows tangled in that crap near our dock, which is a great demonstration of how destructive that weed is. You'd think the DNR and Watershed District would want to aggressively control this crap at the headwaters of our county's major lakes, since lakes like ours feeds all of the big lakes and there will be no way to get rid of the weed without getting rid of it upstream.

There was some noise about how the city was going to make one last contribution to lake shore owner DNR weed eradication permits, but I haven't heard anything new on that subject either. Regarding the milfoil, it almost seems like we're going to have to get out on our shorelines with a rake and drag the junk out of the lake manually.

Speaking of the Watershed District, they use our lake access to make some sort of water sample, drainage analysis a few times every year. I don't know what results from that testing, but you'd think it would be the kind of thing they'd make available to lake shore owners and the city. Anyone have an idea where that information might exist?

Our pair loons left town a couple of weeks ago. I'd become used to hearing them trumpet every morning and when it stopped it seemed like a good neighbor had moved away. I guess we should just feel lucky to have had them for as long as we did.

More Damage from MnDOT?

Just when it appeared that our lake might recover from the abuses of MnDOT and the neglect of the rest of our state and city government, here comes more "improvments" to 35E:

-----Original Message-----
From: Peterson, Scott (DOT) [mailto:scott.r.peterson@state.mn.us]
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 3:03 PM
To: Bev Scalze
Subject: RE: MN PASS lane, 694 to 94

Rep. Scalze,

Here's additional information about the MnPASS project on 35E from the folks involved in the project.

The MnPASS lane (both directions) from St. Paul to Little Canada Road will tie into to existing lanes constructed as part of the unweave the weave project. There is no proposed widening southbound between Little Canada Road and TH 36 because four lanes exist today, but there will be widening northbound from TH 36 to Little Canada Road to add MnPASS lane since only three lanes exist today. Every effort will be taken to minimize impacts to east side of 35E in this area. A noise analysis is being done as part of the Cayuga project to determine noise levels and mitigation efforts.

--------------
From: Bev Scalze [mailto:Rep.Bev.Scalze@house.mn]
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 2:58 PM
To: Peterson, Scott (DOT)
Subject: Re: MN PASS lane, 694 to 94

Thanks, Scott.

Bev Scalze
State Representative, 54B
259 State Office Building
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St. Paul MN 55155
651/296-7153
rep.bev.scalze@house.mn

"Peterson, Scott (DOT)" 5/23/2011 2:55 PM

I have already sent a request for additional information. I will let you know as soon as I hear anything.

--------------
From: Bev Scalze [mailto:Rep.Bev.Scalze@house.mn]
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 02:40 PM
To: Peterson, Scott (DOT)
Cc: joel.hanson@ci.little-canada.mn.us
Subject: Re: MN PASS lane, 694 to 94

Scott,

Thanks for the quick reply.

If Little Canada Road is the beginning of the MnPass project, there may be a problem. The Little Canada Road/35E intersection is at the northern end of Savage Lake. If there are any "added" lanes south of Little Canada Road, that is the section where the 10 lanes of asphalt go through the middle of Savage Lake. There would be a problem with the lakeshore homeowners on Savage Lake.

I would like to know if the plans include any new fill or asphalt to be added south of Little Canada Road in the area of Savage Lake.

Bev Scalze
State Representative, 54B
259 State Office Building
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St. Paul MN 55155
651/296-7153
rep.bev.scalze@house.mn

--------------
"Peterson, Scott (DOT)" 5/23/2011 1:46 PM

I think it is Little Canada Rd.

--------------
From: Bev Scalze [mailto:Rep.Bev.Scalze@house.mn]
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 01:28 PM
To: Peterson, Scott (DOT)
Subject: Re: MN PASS lane, 694 to 94

Scott,

So then the southern limits of the "Unweave the Weave" improvements would be Highway 36?

Bev Scalze
State Representative, 54B
259 State Office Building
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St. Paul MN 55155
651/296-7153
rep.bev.scalze@house.mn

--------------
"Peterson, Scott (DOT)" 5/23/2011 1:15 PM

Rep. Scalze,

Actually the additional lane for MnPass will only extend to the southern limits of the improvements made as part of the "unweave the weave" project. We just use 694 as the northern limit because that gives most people a better understanding of where it will be.

I will double check with our Metro folks to see if there is going to be any additional impact in that area.

Scott R. Peterson
Director, Office of Government Affairs
Minnesota Department of Transportation
395 John Ireland Blvd.
St. Paul, Mn 55155

--------------
On May 23, 2011, at 1:01 PM, "Bev Scalze" wrote:

Scott,

Regarding the proposed amendment to Rep. Beard's Transportation bill, I have a question for you.

The memo that I just received details the "added" MN Pass lane in the vicinity of 694 to 94.

I have concerns about any extra lanes in the area of Little Canada Road. The present 10 lanes of asphalt that currently run through Savage Lake, have severely impacted the quality of life and the quality of the water in Savage Lake. The people who live there have been there for a long time, some for 75 years.

Savage Lake was once one lake, with very clean water. Freeway 35E was constructed through the middle of Savage Lake, beginning in 1959. Lanes have been added since then, and the residents are outraged that the value of their lakeshore property has been severely eroded by actions of the state.

Can you assure me that there will be no extra fill and asphalt used for the "added" Mn PASS lane?

This is a very important issue in Little Canada.

Bev Scalze
State Representative, 54B
259 State Office Building
100 Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
St. Paul MN 55155
651/296-7153
rep.bev.scalze@house.mn

Spring 2011

Still There

In case you haven't made it out to the lake lately, the two loons are still there. If you get up and out early, about sunrise, you can hear them calling. I don't know why they haven't left, but I'm not complaining. We have as much wildlife on the lake as I can remember, including an occasional bald eagle roosting in the trees behind Gopher Electronics. The island is considerably smaller than it has been in years and nesting is more distributed than in years past. Several lake shore residents appear to have created habitat for water fowl and they are going to need it because this extended cold weather and rain has been hard on nests. We've made a few laps around the lake in our canoe and there are lots of abandoned goose eggs and blown-apart nests.

Unfortunately, our old non-native nemesis, the water lily, is about to rear its lake-killing head. Hopefully, the council will get the spraying permit approved soon so we can head the plants off early this year.

Supposedly, there was a toxic chemical (machine cleaning chemicals) dump from the high school a few years back that killed off the fish in the west lake. If the effects of that contamination are lowered, it seems to me that restocking the lake with fish would help balance the flora and fauna. If anyone has a line on how we might go about that, maybe we can get back more of our lake.

Little Canada Elections

I worked for CTV on the 2010 Election Results program and was amazed to see that all 3 incumbent candidates for Little Canada's city offices ran unopposed: The results were:

LITTLE CANADA-MAYOR
		Total
Number of Precincts		3
Precincts Reporting		3	100.0 %
Total Votes		2784
BILL BLESENER		2707	97.23%
Write-in Votes		77	2.77%

LITTLE CANADA-COUNCIL MEMBER
		Total
Number of Precincts		3
Precincts Reporting		3	100.0 %
Total Votes		4471
SHELLY BOSS		2317	51.82%
JOHN KEIS		2079	46.50%
Write-in Votes		75	1.68%

I was impressed to see that about 75 city residents had the gumption to write-in their votes. That's a pretty insignificant (~1%) percentage of about 4,400 votes. However, I have always believed that "Sturgeon's Law" is optimistic, so I think this was a decent turnout of folks with initiative. 

Apparently, Little Canada residents are either satisfied with city government (something my wife's 2006 city council campaign found to be unlikely) or incredibly disconnected from city government (more in line with the conversations she had with residents in 2006). Little Canada wasn't alone in municipal uncontested elections, but being in the company of other apathetic 'burbs isn't exactly a recommendation.

Apathy is tightly linked to anger and many voters were more emotionally-driven in the 2010 election than motivated by rational analysis or an understanding of the nation's pressing issues. We were passionate about some pretty strange things in this election and I've never put much faith in passion; anywhere outside of art or sports. It's only interesting there for entertainment purposes.

Our local state representative, Bev Scalze did pretty well in her race:
STATE REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT 54B

                           Total

Number of Precincts           13

Precincts Reporting           13 100.0 %

Total Votes                15888

KEN RUBENZER                6849 43.11%

BEV SCALZE                  9022 56.78%

Write-in Votes                17  0.11%

Incumbent State Senatory John Marty won his race, too:

STATE SENATOR DISTRICT 54

                           Total

Number of Precincts           22

Precincts Reporting           22  100.0 %

Total Votes                30058

TIM JOHNSON                13131   43.69%

JOHN MARTY                 16896   56.21%

Write-in Votes                31    0.10%

Of those two battles, I'm please that Bev won as she has been consistently involved and helpful in our fight to restore Savage Lake. Senator Marty has been consistently missing in action which put me in a neutral position for his election campaign. Politically, I'm an independent voter, so candidates who display no interest in my areas of concern are pretty much off of my radar.

We have a new county sheriff, Matt Bostrom. Since I have not been able to figure out why the 2009 city budget saw a 20% increase in "Public Safety: Police" expenses, when all other expenses held pretty close to previous years, I'm hoping that Sheriff Bostrom will be more fiscally responsible than Mr. Fletcher. Fletcher had a reputation for cost over-runs in his department. It's hard to imagine a 20% ($197,670) one-year increase (from $926k to $1.124M, page 14 of the city's General Fund Summary) being justified for anything in a city as small as ours.

(Hopefully, we're not paying for the increased "enforcement" of the primary seat-belt law that has resulted in several dangerous situations on Little Canada road over the last year. That has to have been a money-maker for the county, even if it's another pointless example of Big Mommy government.)

In all, I think the 2010 election was disappointing. If we are unable to attract more than 3 Little Canada residents to run for 3 city offices in times as economically and socially critical as these, our community is in sad shape. I put some of the blame on an election system that is about as far from transparent as possible. Finding out who is running for what, before the election filing dates is, as best I can tell, impossible without inside connections. A county website posts the candidates, but it didn't come on line until several weeks after the filing deadline: http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/elections/Other_Offices.htm. The application system is pretty simple and inexpensive, but campaign finance laws are overly-complicated and close to incomprehensible, which keeps most of us from wanting to dip a toe into local politics. We all know that is the intent of our current system and there doesn't seem to be a way out of this undemocratic mess.The cure would be for more citizens to become involved, but that isn't the current trend in the US.

In City Council Notes

8/25/2010: The City Administrator reported that the spraying of lily pads in West Savage Lake has begun pursuant to the permit issued by the DNR. The Administrator commented on the process in obtaining the permit and the fact that five of the twelve abutting property owners were denied permits since the DNR indicated there was no evidence of recreational use of the lake by these residents. One of the denials has since been rescinded, and the four other property owners receiving denial may appeal. The Administrator reported that the process has been frustrating, and he has sought the help of the City’s State Representative in this matter. However, he was not sure that the matter would be resolved in time to spray this year given the small window that the DNR allows for the spraying to be done.

[Note: I received the following email from Joel Hanson, City Manager in reply to my inquiry about making an earlier application for next season's permit.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Hanson [mailto:joel.hanson@ci.little-canada.mn.us]
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 3:02 PM
To: T.W. Day
Subject: RE: [Savage Lake, Little Canada, Minnesota] Bits of the Mission Accomplished

Tom:

Thanks for the updated pictures. I drove by the area last week and could definitely tell you had applied some chemical.

I did discuss this with the Council at our Workshop on Monday. They approved paying for the permit for one more year and I'll get it applied for later this fall.

The Council did indicate that any future permits (after 2011) will be the responsibility of the land owners, but they felt is warranted to pick up the cost for another year.

JH

Bits of the Mission Accomplished

When I got back from Texas, a week after John and I sprayed, looking at the lake was pretty discouraging. Earlier this week, I was driving past our lake on I35E and I could have sworn I saw the outline of the route John and I took with the canoe and Roundup. Friday, we canoed out into the lake and discovered that canoeing is possible. Today, my wife and I ventured out on the lake with a camera and took some pictures of our lake and, I hope, you can see where John and I whipped up on the lilies; and where we didn't.

The recommended 2nd round of spraying would have really cleaned out the open areas. But you can easily get around the lake and if it's far from perfect it's also far from completely jammed with lilies. The large treated center section is considerably less populated than the untreated edges. Some of the pictures show the difference pretty clearly. The path around the island is less obvious, but in the right light from the right angle, you can see where we were. On the canoe, the cleared area is the only path around the lake.

Some of my wife's pictures show how badly the lake is infected with milfoil. I have no idea how we're going to beat back this contamination, but I suspect that we need some more life in the lake to help with this; animals and fish. There was more life on the lake this afternoon than there was all summer. We spotted a dozen geese, the same number of ducks, a couple herons, and a couple of least bitterns. If we can get an early start with the herbicide next spring, maybe some of the birds and animals will stick around for the summer. The lily infestation pretty much forces the birds to look elsewhere for habitat and hunting.

Fall and Herbicides

It looks like we managed to spray our herbicide on the lilies about the time they would have died naturally. Hopefully, that means next spring's crop will be slowed up a bit.

It struck me that the permit process is probably an annual deal, with a September 1 expiration. If that's so, we ought to have the city apply for next year's permit as soon as possible. Then, we'll have the whole growing season to attack those things and, maybe, keep the lake free all season.