It's been a while since my last update. Our lake neighbors John Cretzmeyer and Barb Jacobson have been in print lately for their extravagant Christmas lights. This is their last year. If you haven't driven past their house on the west side of the lake in the last 10 years, you need to do it. It is spectacular.
I took this photo a few years ago.
(click on photo to enlarge)
The White Bear Lake water level lawsuit appears to have taken the next step. The city of White Bear Lake still needs to sign off at their next council meeting. Funding is going to be interesting. Lots of money involved. Basically, the agreement is to use the Mississippi River for the water source, instead of city wells. The state legislature needs to deal with the funding. The latest from the Press Publication is here.
I had an interesting discussion with lake resident Ted Jagger about the WBL water level problem. Many of you may remember a few years ago that there was a company tasked with running a sewage treatment pipe past Bald Eagle Lake. In the process, they ran into a lot of water that they had to pump out. In the end they pumped literally billions of gallons of water (up to 4,000 gallons a minute) out of the watershed and into the storm water system. To both of us, this seems to have coincided with a significant drop in the water level on White Bear Lake. It was in the news in the beginning of all of this discussion, but it seems to have fallen off the radar. See this article in the Pioneer Press from 2011 (written by John Brewer). (John's parents live on the lake.) Will White Bear Lake recover, since there is no longer any pumping in this manner? Time will tell. I hope so. It's a treasure for our community.
In the end, though, the DNR believes that we have a long term problem of over using the watershed and it is best to begin the process of moving to surface water for our water source.
The Bald Eagle Island house made the news this week, also, but not because of the development. Apparently three young (16, 14, 13) teenage delinquents were involved. This is the second break-in in the last year. From Hans Stachowiak: "I was present when the police arrested them, there were no regrets, no"sorry" to hear from the kids, the level of violence and damage was unbelievable. We needed three days to repair and clean up the house."
The son of a friend of Nick & Jane is now living there to help prevent future occurrences.
As far as the island development is concerned, Hans' next hurdle is a planning commission meeting on Wednesday, December 17 at 7:00pm at Heritage Hall to discuss the needed variances and Conditional Use Permit.
The RCWD has a new newsletter. We still don't know who will replace Harley Ogata on the board. They might have made a decision at yesterday's meeting.
If any of you are interested in getting a 2015 calendar of Bald Eagle Lake sunsets taken by me last year, I have put together a collection of photos and put it out on Lulu.com for anyone to purchase. It is a large high quality calendar and I am pretty much offering it for pennies mark-up.
Here is a sample of the pictures included.
(click on photo to enlarge)
Have a great time with family and friends over the holidays.
Regards,
Jim
