Yes, it’s that time of year again. It’s pothole season. With the freeze and thaw and freeze and thaw cycle in full gear right now, we will begin to start seeing our old driving nemesis more often - the pothole.

We have a new feature for our residents to assist us this year in fighting potholes. We have installed a new link at the City’s website - www.edenprairie.org - that will allow residents to report potholes directly to our Street Division office. The link will lead you to an e-form. Use the e-form to give us a location description of the pothole. We would also like to know who is reporting the pothole so that we can follow-up with you, if we need to. There is also a link to report potholes on state highways. We don’t fix those potholes, but we will make sure they know about them.

It sounds like we will get a ton of heavy wet snow today, but it will likely be melted by tomorrow. Lots of moisture and temperatures fluctuating between 20 and 40 F are ripe conditions for potholes. We’d appreciate your help in attacking this annual nuisances as they grow.

I composed (with the very able editing of Communication Manager Joyce Lorenz and Public Works Director Gene Dietz) a commentary piece about water production and consumption for Eden Prairie’s two local newspapers last week. It got into the Eden Prairie News last week and will hopefully make the Eden Prairie Sun Current this week. Here’s the courtesy copy for the blog. Enjoy.

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While a public water utility is a complex business operation, the operating concept is not. The city pumps water out of the ground to a central water treatment plant where it is treated with chemicals to soften it and make it safe for human consumption. The treated water is then pumped to a storage tank or water tower where it waits to be distributed via a system of underground pipes.

Our water utility is financed by the customers of our system through user fees. Property taxes do not support our water utility operations. It’s an important distinction from other cities that cross-subsidize their water utility systems with tax dollars. These cities can get into financial trouble when taxpayers figure out they are paying more taxes than necessary in order to subsidize water customers who are paying lower water rates than they ought to, or vice-versa.

Some may wonder about the rationale the city uses to charge its customers for the water they consume. Why does the unit price for water go up as the amount consumed increases? What’s wrong with selling people as much water as they are willing to buy?

Water is unlike other commodities like gasoline, diamonds and wheat that are produced and sold in a private market. For a good to be produced and sold in a private market, consumers must have the option to buy it or not to buy it. Eden Prairie property owners do not have an option to buy our water. For public health reasons, the city mandates that every occupied building must have water. It’s the law.

Because water is a mandatory good, its price cannot be left to the marketplace, which would set prices at the intersection of supply and demand. Water rates are set by our City Council to finance the annual operations and the current/future capital needs of the water utility. There are no profits to be generated. No dividends to be paid.

The city cannot pump, treat and distribute an unlimited amount of water, regardless of customers’ desires. Three key parameters control how much water the city is able to produce and sell: natural, mechanical and regulatory.

The natural parameter is easy to understand. If there isn’t water in our 15 wells, we can’t pump it out of the ground. During the past three summers, we’ve seen well levels drop so much that we will have to reconstruct at least two of them to reach deeper into the ground for water. Minnesota is blessed with good water supplies - relative to other parts of the country - but water is not an unlimited resource.

The mechanical parameter refers to the capacity of our water treatment plant, wells, water towers and piping system. When operating at 100 percent of capacity, it can produce 22,500,000 gallons in a 24-hour period. To reach 100 percent production, we must operate every mechanical function at its full capacity, which stresses our production equipment (and staff) and creates a greater potential for mechanical failures, jeopardizing personal and emergency water use.

The final parameter is regulatory. The city is granted an allocation by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The permit restricts the amount of water we are allowed to “draw” out of the earth on an annual basis. The city’s current permit is 3.45 billion gallons per year. In 2007 we actually pumped 3.56 billion gallons - in violation of our permit. We will continue to seek an addition to our allocation, but we must demonstrate to the DNR that we have a legitimate need to take more water from the reservoir we share with many other metro-area cities.

We know that the winter time average daily water consumption for Eden Prairie is about 6,000,000 gallons. During the growing season the daily consumption regularly rises to the mechanical maximum of 22,500,000 gallons per day - entirely attributable to outdoor watering.

To secure approval from the DNR for new wells cities must demonstrate that they are serious about water conservation. One requirement is to adopt and enforce a water conservation program, which charges user fees that discourage excessive water consumption through a progressive rate structure. We also reduce consumption with an odd/even watering system and a total ban from noon to 5 p.m. daily. House File No. 3238, currently proposed at the Legislature, would mandate that all water suppliers serving more than 1,000 customers have a “conservation rate structure” like ours.

It’s challenging to manage a city service which we know does not meet the desires of many of our customers. But first the city must manage its resources in a manner that is consistent with federal and state law, in the best interest of taxpayers and especially to meet priority needs for our water - household, commercial/industrial and fire protection. We must be good stewards of our natural resources and environment.

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Erin go Bragh!

I got back into the office today and started to go through my mail, email and voice mail when I read this message in my email box from last week:

Dear Mr. Neal,

I noticed the “Change a light” link on the home page of our city’s website. I love these lights and have installed many in my home.

Lately I have been hearing about the lights becoming an environmental concern because they contain mercury and must be disposed of at a hazardous waste site. It might be a scare tactic by the contrarians who state that you need a hazmat suit to clean up a broken bulb, but I wonder if it is wise to promote this policy when legitimate dangers have not been addressed.

It’s a fair question. Before we promote something to the public as socially or environmentally desirable, we ought to be sure that it is indeed desirable and not fraught with collateral problems. The resident’s point is well taken: What good is promoting the use of energy efficient light bulbs if they go on to make our environmental mercury problem worse?

You can learn more about the City’s Change a Light Pledge by going to the City’s website and clicking on the Change A Light Pledge link at the top of the links on the right hand side of the page. Or, you can just click the same link in the previous sentence. Either way, you will be linked to the Energy Star website that explains the Change a Light Pledge, which promotes the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs. The City of Eden Prairie endorses the Change a Light Pledge because we believe it is a little thing that residents can do to reduce the amount of energy we are consuming as a community. The City supports the wise use of energy because we believe in conservation and the prudent use of our resources.

Included in the information about CFLs is information about the safety of CFLs. Yes, CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, but they pose no known health risks and do not require extraordinary efforts to clean up if they break or dispose of when they expire. Check the website for more information, but I think that most people can be reassured that this product is safe and effective in the average American home.

I have set about changing the old light bulbs in my house to CFLs. The color of the light takes a little getting used to, but I like it. I have not noticed much of a drop in my electrical bill yet - but I’ll be keeping an eye on that and I’ll report my results later.

Here’s my Friday Report to the City Council for Friday, December 14, 2007:

Friday Report

1. MLC Legislative Program is Approved - The Municipal Legislative Commission Board of Directors unanimously approved the draft 2008 legislative program at the board meeting in Shoreview yesterday.

2. Joint Meeting with Planning Commission - Our Workshop for Tuesday, Dec. 18 is a joint meeting with the Planning Commission. The purpose of the joint meeting is to discuss the future of the Major Center Area. Staff and Planning Commission are hoping to receive affirmation that our current policy direction on the MCA, and specifically the Town Center, still has the general support of the City Council.

3. Joint Meeting with Legislative Delegation - I have invited Representatives Paulsen and Ruud and Senator Hann to join the City Council for a pre-session joint meeting during the City Council’s Jan. 22, 2008, workshop.

4. Transitional Housing Proposal - Housing and Community Services staff are working with Pax Christi Church on a proposal to establish a “transitional home”. In this proposal, the City would purchase a home with Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds. The Church would manage the transition home functions. The City Attorney’s office has researched the use of CDBG funds for this type of function and determined that it is an eligible use. Further, this meets HUD’s objective to work with faith-based initiatives. A transitional home is one in which a family is provided a place to live for a period of time, while receiving supportive efforts to achieve education and employment goals in order to thrive in the community. This project will be formally presented to the City Council early in 2008.

5. MLC Legislative Breakfast Meetings - The annual MLC Regional Legislative Breakfast Reception for the west metro MLC cities and legislators has been scheduled for Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, from 7:30 - 9 a.m. at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center in Plymouth.

6. Proposed City Council Meeting Schedule for 2008 - The Council normally approves its schedule of official meetings for the year at its first official meeting of the year. Because the first Tuesday of the year is Jan. 1, 2008, the Council’s first official meeting of the year is scheduled for the second Tuesday of Jan. 8, 2008. There are also several anomalies in the 2008 calendar which make the standard 1st and 3rd Tuesday meeting schedule difficult to attain. I am proposing a modified Council meeting schedule for 2008, which adjusts the standard schedule during several months. I also intend to raise the issue with the Council at the Dec. 18 Council meeting.

7. Annual Holiday Meal - Council Members are welcome and invited to join staff for our annual holiday meal on Thursday, Dec. 20. The meal is served in the Garden Room. It runs from 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. In addition, we do a slightly scaled down version of the meal for night shift employees from 8 - 9 p.m., also in the Garden Room.

8. Customer Thank You Cards - Liquor Store staff are distributing customer thank you cards again this year.

9. Flag Lights - Appropriate lighting has been installed to light the flags at the Veterans Memorial in Purgatory Creek Park.

10. Town Hall Meeting Follow-up - I have sent a follow-up letter to every speaker from the Nov. 27 Town Hall Meeting.

11. City Center Holiday Schedule - City Center will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and also on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. We have posted the holiday hours for other City facilities on our Web site.

12. 2008 Council Planning Session - At the Dec. 3 Council meeting, the Council set Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008, as the date of the annual Council planning session. We have reserved a meeting room at Olympic Hills Golf Club for the day.

I call the feedback I get from blog “blogback“. Occasionally I like to share snippets of recent blogback with my readers so that you can get a feel for the kind of things that people react to when reading my blog. Here’s just a few:

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Blogback #1: “I’ve been following your blog for awhile now — great forum for extra

information going in Eden Prairie. I was hoping, either through a direct email or through your blog entries,

to describe the work on Valleyview Road just east of Prairie Center Drive. As a further suggestion, maybe you could include more regular periodic updates about the road and other construction going on in the city.

Thanks.”

Scott said: I followed up with the request directly to tell the writer what was happening on Valley View Road.

Blogback #2: “I was reading your entry about the goose problem, and I was wondering if you

ever considered landscaping to prevent geese. It’s so effective; they did

it at Como Park and I used to see huge amounts of geese and now I don’t

think I’ve seen a single goose all summer. Basically, geese like expanses

of lawn and you just need to create barriers around water and throughout the

lawn like shrubs and native plants to deter them. I’m surprised no one in

your community has thought of this, it’s not like it’s an unusual or

expensive solution. I think you’ll find this an incredibly effective and cost effective long

term solution.”

Blogback #3: “Why can’t we take steps to increase the amount of water available to pump

per day? Bloomington has no watering restrictions because they got out front

of the problem and secured enough water. We do not have to have watering restrictions year after year if the proper planning is put in place. I think the Community Center should be run by a private (for profit)

company - supplying water is a service that should be managed by the city.

You should increase our water supply instead of advertising false shortages. Thanks for your time,”

Scott said: I assured this person that the City was not creating false water shortages. I told him that our water supply is controlled by how much water we can pump out of the earth, and that is regulated by the State of Minnesota. Bloomington is in a different position because they have a water system interconnection with the City of Minneapolis which uses the Mississippi River as its water source.

Blogback #4: “Hi Scott, I have been reading the Eden Prairie Blogs for a while now. Even though I

do not live in EP I find them interesting to see how another see is doing things. I have never commented before but after reading Andrew Sullivan’s guest blog I have too. He needs his own blog! Who would have thought he could make new water meters that funny. I think there might be some space on the page

with Dan Carlson’s departure…. Keep of the good blogs

Scott said: I thanked this fellow for reading the blog, and passed along his praise to Andrew Sullivan, which, if you haven’t read it, is a wonderful essay on the pleasures and dangers of reading water meters. If you haven’t read it, use the search function on my blog to go back to the middle of 2007. Read it. It’s pretty good. In fact, I recommend reading all the guest bloggers I’ve had this year. They are insightful and provide a nice change of pace from my writing style.

If you drive by the SW Station area in Eden Prairie this week, chances are you are going to slow down and dodge a little bit of late season construction action. This is a photo of the work being done in Technology Drive. This is a good thing. The SW Transit station, Culvers and the group of restaurants in the strip building are getting new water and sewer utilities this week.

If you’re familiar with the area, you’ve seen blue plastic pipes laying on the ground for the better part of the summer. This was the public water supply for the buildings in the SW Station area. For reasons which are still being sorted out, the underground utilities in the area failed and needed to be replaced. A water supply line laying on the ground in the summer is not great, but it is feasible. In the winter, it’s neither good, nor is it feasible. It looks like the property owners are going to get this project done just before things start to get really cold here.

We are expecting them to finish this project by the end of this week.

Eden Prairie was among several communities this past weekend that suffered public and private damage due to heavy winds. The wind storm blew in during the late hours of Friday night and wee morning hours of Saturday morning. Hangars were damaged and a couple of airplanes were flipped over at the airport. Trees, picnic tables and portable toilets were damaged in our parks.

There were several neighborhoods that appeared to take the brunt of the damage. One was the Hidden Oaks neighborhood in The Preserve area. It is a part of town that is heavily wooded. People live in the forest. They lost many valuable trees. There was also some property damage to some homes, although we had no reports of anyone being injured.

The aftermath of the storm has created a storm of its own. A number of years back, the City Council adopted a policy of not picking up storm debris from private property, unless the Council declares a “storm emergency”. The objective of this policy is to limit the expenditure of public funds on storm clean up to the debris removal that is required on public property. That includes streets, sidewalks, trail, parks, and other public property. And there was a lot of it from this weekend’s storms. We had 20 employees come in this weekend to clear storm damaged trees from streets and trails. City crews are still working on clearing storm damage all this week.

But this policy has proved to be unpopular with homeowners who suffered significant tree loss from the storm. They are dealing not only with the loss of their trees, but also the financial consequences of paying for the tree removal. Some of them believe the City ought to come in and pay for their private damaged trees to be removed from their private property. “Isn’t that what a City is supposed to do in a situation like this?”, was a question I heard more than once on Monday. We have some very unhappy homeowners right now who believe their city government has let them down.

It’s a tough question, but the City’s policy on this question is clear. I spoke this weekend with the Parks & Recreation Director, Public Works Director, Assistant Fire Chief, and the Police Chief about the storm. We evaluated the damage. In the collective opinion of the senior city staff members involved, we did not believe the damage rose to the level of what we would call a “storm emergency”. We did not ask the City Council to schedule an emergency meeting because we would not have recommended the Council make the storm emergency declaration. The Council has the discretion, of course, to call an emergency meeting and make the declaration, but they chose to accept our recommendation.

The large majority of property owners, however, did what most Minnesotans do after a storm. They got about the business of cleaning up their own mess. As I drove around the City on Monday and Tuesday, you could see lots of lawn service and tree service contractors at work, but you could see just as many home owners and business owners outside with rakes and chain saws clearing their land of the storm’s debris.

To assist them, the City is opening up a special facility on August 18, 19, 25 and 26 from 9am-3pm for residents to bring their storm debris. We won’t pick up the debris at their homes, but they can bring it to a central drop-off location for disposal. We have arranged for a party to come in and chip up everything at the site at no cost to the City. The location is the City’s Maintenance Outdoor Storage Site (MOSS) on Flying Cloud Drive across from the airport. Look for the enormous pile of tree debris. Believe me, it won’t be hard to see..

Monday Monday. It’s back to work day. Instead of an inspiring message for my blog today about budgets or storm sewers or goose management, I thought that I’d lead the week with some photos I snapped this morning at Purgatory Creek Park.

The fountains are working. The Lambert Pavilion looks good. you can see our fishing pier. And the flowers on a warm Monday morning were gorgeous.

Enjoy your Monday.

Earlier this year the City wrestled with a development proposal from a developer who wanted to convert the current Bent Creek Golf Course into a new residential development. The City did not grant the developer the approvals required to move their development plan forward. After not receiving the approvals, the developer threatened to sue the City. However, we’ve heard nothing from the developer in the ensuing months. Why?

We believe haven’t been sued or heard anything from the developer because there has been a case pending at the Minnesota Supreme Court called Wensmann Realty, Inc., et al., Appellants, vs. City of Eagan, Respondent. The Supreme Court finally ruled on the case last week. You can read the decision by clicking on this link: A05-1074.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper did a short story about the decision in their July 13 South edition. Here’s what they said:

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Court says Eagan may prevent homes on golf course, compensation question remains

The city of Eagan had the right to deny a developer’s plans to build homes on the former Carriage Hills Golf Course, but it’s unclear whether the city must compensate the course’s owner for the value of the property as a result, according to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

By Sarah Lemagie, Star Tribune

The city of Eagan had the right to deny a developer’s plans to build homes on the former Carriage Hills Golf Course, but it’s unclear whether the city must compensate the course’s owner for the value of the property as a result, according to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

In a decision issued Thursday, Justice Lorie Gildea wrote that Eagan cited valid reasons for refusing to change city land-use plans to let Wensmann Realty build 480 homes on the 120 acres. The city and many residents argued that the golf course, which was closed in 2004, is valuable green space and that developing it would create traffic problems and overcrowd nearby schools. But the court ordered the case returned to District Court over the compensation question.

Golf course owner Ray Rahn and Wensmann, which signed an agreement to buy the property in 2004, contested the city’s decision. They said the property was no longer profitable as a golf course and argued that the city’s refusal to allow development forces the landowner to bear the economic burden of maintaining green space that benefits the entire community.

Rahn and Wensmann won in District Court in 2005, but the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the decision last year.

Eagan may have to pay for the property if it doesn’t want to allow development on the golf course, Gildea wrote, but only if Rahn has no other reasonable options for using the property. That’s an issue for the District Court, she wrote.

The city’s land use plan defines the golf course as parkland, where campgrounds, swimming pools, tennis courts and other recreational uses are also allowed.

Sarah Lemagie • 612-673-7557 • slemagie@startribune.com

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How all of this affects the proposal to redevelop the Bent Creek Golf Club in Eden Prairie is still unknown. City staff and legal counsel are reading the decision and conferring with other legal experts. We’ll figure it out, but it’s fair to say that the decision is a mixed bag. I would not be surprised to hear the words “Bent Creek” back in our Council Chambers later this year. Not surprised at all.

The City of Eden Prairie has a program to manage the local population of Canada Geese. Our program seeks to limit the size of their population in our city. We want to have less Canada Geese call Eden Prairie home for two primary reasons. They diminish the water quality of our lakes and ponds with their feces. And, they disrupt human use of beaches, yards and other public spaces.

For the past five years, the City has contracted with a former wildlife biology professor at the University of Minnesota to conduct our goose management activities. He coordinates the collection and relocation of geese out of Eden Prairie. In the early years of the program, many of the geese went to goose preserves. But the goose preserves no longer want additional geese, so geese collected under our program now go to metro area food shelves to feed the hungry and needy.

There is a high level of public support for our goose management program. But not everyone likes it. Recently, representatives from the Humane Society of the United States appeared at a City Council meeting to demand that we end our current goose management program. They believe that we can manage geese in a manner that is more humane than our current program. I agreed to examine their program. I’m looking at it now.

The HSUS has pushed the issue in the Twin Cities media. Over the past month, I’ve done several TV and newspaper interviews about goose management - a subject matter I never imagined that I’d have to master when I was in college preparing for my future career in city management. Last week, for example, KSTP - Channel 5 did a 10pm evening news story about our program. The reporter (Tim Sherno) interviewed a representative from the HSUS; an Eden Prairie resident who is pestered by geese; and me. The story was even-handed and generally accurate, and yet it created the following voice mail message for me the day after the story was on TV:

For the record, I am not an Atheist. I am a Christian. Genesis 1:26-28 fairly describes how I feel about animals. I am not a Redneck, but I did grow up in Iowa, if that’s what she means. I am not a hunter, but I don’t have any problems with people who hunt, or those who fish either. And I won’t get into whether I’m “unattractive” or not. My goodness, that’s a cheap shot.

The voice mail came from an anonymous caller, so there’s no privacy for me to protect. I don’t know who the caller is. I don’t need to know who the caller is. I decided to share this voice mail on my blog to give my readers a chance to hear the kind of feedback that we’ve received on this issue. It’s passionate, to say the least. I don’t like the cheap shots, but it comes with the territory sometimes. The 1st Amendment is a good thing. The 1st Amendment is a good thing.

The City does not operate a goose management program out of a desire to hurt animals. We do it as respectfully and as humanely as possible, and yet still achieve the level of effectiveness we are looking for. We will evaluate new ideas and techniques to manage the goose population in Eden Prairie. But, in the end, we will manage this issue for the primary benefit of our human, not our goose, population. After all, humans pay the bills.

It’s all right there in the title of this blog post: Curly pondweed is bad. It’s bad for Minnesota lakes. It might be fine in some other ecosystem’s lakes in this world, but in Minnesota lakes - it’s a menace. And right now, it’s menacing Anderson Lakes. There is a pretty good article by Laurie Blake in today’s Star Tribune about curly pondweed and a plan to eradicate it from Anderson Lakes. If you’re interested in this story, I recommend clicking the link to read the story. Ms. Blake does a good job of explaining the issue and the proposed plan.

The City has been working with the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District Board to develop a plan to get the weed out of the lake. The first plan was to use chemical applications. The City did not like that plan for a couple of reasons. Dumping chemical into the lake just doesn’t seem like a good idea on its face, plus it was more expensive than a viable alternative plan.

That viable alternative plan is to drain the lake and expose the curly pondweed to a very nasty Minnesota winter, which will kill it good. Then allow the lake to refill. Yes, fish will die when the lake is drained, but a fish population will return to the lake as it refills, just as other wildlife will return as well. There are many details about how a lake is drained and how it gets refilled, but the plan to drain the lake is less expensive and less harsh on the environment than the chemical application solution.

The only sentence I take issue with in Ms. Blake’s article is the sentence that says “Eden Prairie wants to drain the lakes.” Not so. Speaking on behalf of the City, I can tell you that nobody in city government wants to drain the lake. We see draining the lake as the best alternative to solve a problem. That problem is the infestation of the lake by curly pondweed. Doing nothing when we see a problem is not responsible government. Draining the lake may seem like a rash thing to do, but we see it as the best solution for the long term environmental health of Anderson Lakes.

The Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area (aka - The RTA) is the City’s newest conservation area. We dedicated it in 2005. It is located in the City’s far southwest corner, located on the bluff above the Minnesota River Valley, right on our border with Chanhassen.

Photographer Todd Nordquist of Eden Prairie and amateur botanist Sean Jergens, board member at the Minnesota Native Plant Society, led a group of Eden Prairie residents on a walking tour of Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area, Saturday April 21st. The event was sponsored by Writers Rising Up and the Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail.

They identified and cataloged spring ephemeral wildflowers, which bloom a short time before leaves appear on trees and foliage blocks sunlight from the forest floor. The March cold spell seems to have slowed down the emergence of wildflowers this spring, but the group was able to discover of several species in bloom. They identified hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), and wild ginger (Asarum canadensis) in full bloom. The new foliage of ferns, called “fiddle heads,” were just beginning to unfurl. In the prairie they found a patch of prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) just beginning to bloom. All of the participants looked forward to returning to the site throughout the seasons to see what they might discover next.

Photo Left: Roxanne Aase and Todd Norquist of Eden Prairie.

Photo Right: Prairie Smoke by Todd Norquist of Eden Prairie

There are some interesting upcoming events scheduled at the RTA:

June 23- Saturday; 10 to Noon -Yako Myers, Ojibwa Herbalist -Plant Uses of the Native Indians: Workshop and Excursion- Yako teaches at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. $15.00 per person-

September, 9 Sunday; 1 to 3pm - Nature’s Seed Mechanism: Fruits and Seeds- -Types of fruits, dry and fleshy; dispersal methods; flower structure/MN Landscape Arboretum Instructor, Shirley Mah Kooyman -$20.00 per person-

October 6, Saturday, 2007; 8 to Noon- Local Wilderness Writing Workshop- Don Scheese- Mountains of Memory, Author, Professor Gustavus Adolphus
$30.00 per-person-

Note: Fees are paid directly to instructors for travel time and instruction and can be paid the day of the event. Families or groups who wish to participate need only pay a one person fee per family.

Come out and enjoy the RTA.

For more information about upcoming events go to:

efeinterpretivetrail@comcast.net

www.efeinterpretivetrail.org

The photo on the left was taken last week. It is a photo of a contractor’s backhoe on the frozen wetland in the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area. This is the “before” photo.

The photo on the right, also taken last week, is the same backhoe several hours later, not too long after the ice gave way and it sank into four feet of very cold water and muck. This is the “after” photo. You can click on both photos to see them in a larger size and greater detail.

Yes, a backhoe plunging through the ice on a cold February day is interesting, but you might also be interested to learn about why that backhoe was out on that ice to begin with.

We have recently contracted with a private construction company to install a new boardwalk/pier at the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area. The boardwalk will extend about 45 feet out over the water and be approximately 3.5 feet above the water. This boardwalk was part of the original design concept for the park and when complete it will have benches and tables for park users sit upon and enjoy the sights and sounds of the park and pond area. The construction plan is to have the pier built and open to the public by mid-May.

In order to build the boardwalk, pier anchors must be installed to support the weight of the wood beams and decking. This isn’t your typical lake home style boardwalk and the soils below the water are best described as “pure muck”. Due to the poor weight bearing capabilities a foundation system called Helical Piers is being used. This is best described as a large screw that is twisted into the soil using 3.5 inch diameter pipe extensions until the screw head is embedded in firm enough soil to bear the weight of the boardwalk and people.

This type of foundation system has been around over 90 years, but with the advent of hydraulic power heads the uses have increased dramatically. For example the lighting fixtures within the

Purgatory Creek Recreation Area Park are installed on special helical screws that replace conventional concrete footings. The helical piers for this boardwalk are installed to a depth average of 60 feet. The screw/pipe installation was tested to a bearing weight of 32,000 pounds with only a 6/10 inch drop in the top of the pipe!

In order to install these anchors, the contractor needed to use a machine capable of drilling the helical screws to the projected depth of 60 feet or greater. The pond ice thickness was checked and found be 18 to 20 inches of good clear ice. The water depth where the boardwalk is being installed is about 4 feet deep. There are a total of 14 vertical piers to support the boardwalk and 10 of these needed to be installed through the ice. The machine that the contractor used weighs around 26,000 pounds and everything went fine last Thursday until the installation of the 10^th pier. Then the ice started to give way at the rear of the machine and the operator immediately started to move the backhoe for shore. Unfortunately he didn’t quite make it and the backhoe slowly settled to the bottom. The crew called in help and after a couple of hours was able to get the machine out of the water.

Fortunately, there were no injuries, no damage to the machine or its engine and there was no leakage of fuel or fluids into the pond. The contractor finished up the installation on Friday by finishing the 10^th pier from shore as well as the four remaining dry land anchors. The next phase is to install the beams, decking and safety railing in March/April. You can enjoy this new park feature later this spring.

Note: I had help on this post from our Parks & Natural Resources Manager Stu Fox with the photos and the information about the project. Thanks Stu!

The City has been engaged in a process over the last 10 months to clarify its land use regulations for the four golf courses within our corporate limits. We started that clarification process in 2006 for two basic reasons. First, we were seeing examples of marginal golf courses going through redevelopment from golf courses into residential development, and the community pain that came with that transformation. Second, we did not have a uniform set of Comprehensive Guide Plan, zoning and other land use regs in place for our four golf courses, so we wanted to fix that and put them all on the same level playing field.

At our City Council meeting last night, the Council approved a new ordinance that defined what can and cannot happen at a “golf course”. The new regulations must be published in our local newspaper, and then they will become effective. The new regulations do two things: they will make the Comprehensive Guide Plan and zoning classifications of the Eden Prairie four golf courses uniform and they will make it clear to the owners and the neighbors of the golf courses what activities are permissible at a golf course.

The owners of one of the golf courses, the Bent Creek course, object to the new regulations because they would like to sell their golf course to developers. They believe, and I don’t doubt, that their golf course is worth more as a new residential development than as a golf course. The Bent Creek owners have not yet submitted a formal plan or proposal to the City regarding their development plans. They’re still just talking about it. An attorney for the owners attended our City Council meeting last night to speak about the issue. You can see a news clip from KSTP channel 5 by clicking on this link: Bent Creek news clip.

The City does not agree that the owners of the Bent Creek golf course have development rights for their golf course. We believe the development rights for the property were given up by the original owners of the golf course as part of an overall development compromise at the time when the area around the golf course was developed in the 1970’s.

While the City has not rejected a development proposal for the Bent Creek golf course (because one has not been submitted yet) we believe our previous regulations (previous to last night’s Council action) precluded development of this golf course and that our new regulations make that preclusion even more clear. We don’t believe we are taking away any development rights from the current owners of Bent Creek because we don’t believe they had any development rights to take away in the first place. Even with the new regulations in place that were adopted by our Council last night, we believe the current owners of the Bent Creek golf course have the same development rights today that they had yesterday, last week, last year or ten years ago……which is to say no development rights.

The attorney for the Bent Creek owners made it very clear to the City Council last night that if the City rejected their yet-to-be-submitted development proposal, they would sue the City. The City hasn’t received a development proposal yet from the Bent Creek owners, so I will not speculate about how the City will react to it. What I will say is that the City will enforce its land use regulations and we’ll judge any development proposal we receive from anyone accordingly.