This is beautiful Red Rock Lake in beautiful Eden Prairie, Minnesota. A few weeks ago I got a call from the Mayor that she had received calls from citizens who live around the lake that the lake was being silted up by silt and dirt coming into the lake from City storm sewers that drain into the lake in several spots. So, the Mayor and I decided a personal tour of the lake was in order to see the situation for ourselves.
Here we are getting the boat ready to put in. We used a boat from the Fire Department which is normally used for water rescues. And in case you’re wondering, if there was an actual emergency during our trip, the Fire Department has another boat.
This is Scott Taylor. He was captain of the boat. He is a Fire Inspector for the City and a long-time fire fighter for our Fire Department.
Leslie Stovring (on the left in the yellow shirt with her back towards the camera) is the City’s Environmental Coordinator. She handles pollution control and mitigation issues for the City. She works out of the Public Works Department’s Engineering Division. She was our tour guide for the trip. She is showing Scott Taylor a map of the storm sewer inlet locations on the lake.
This is John Carlon. John is a supervisor in our Utilities Division. John manages the City’s “Outside Utilities” which covers pretty much everything having to do with water, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer pipes that are outside the Water Treatment Plant. John came along to tell us how the storm sewer system around the lake functioned and what the City’s options might be to help decrease storm sewer flow into the lake.
This is the Mayor. The Honorable Nancy Tyra-Lukens. She came along because she wanted to personally assure the citizens who spoke to her that she thought their concerns about the lake were important and that the City would make every effort to study and remedy the problems.
This is an example of a storm sewer pipe that is attached to a storm water intake somewhere on a street near Red Rock Lake. Rain water and melting snow flow into the storm water intake, through the pipe, and into the lake. The storm water can include pollution and fine silt that then builds up on the floor of the lake decreasing its depth and water quality.
Red Rock Lake is one of 16 lakes in Eden Prairie. They are jewels. The City wants them to be jewels in the future. City staff will be studying this situation at Red Rock Lake, defining the problem, and designing a solution for the problem. Those are our next steps.
