Meeting with Hugo staff on the damn dam

Greetings,

Thanks to Tom Weyandt for the minutes from our meeting last night at the Hugo American Legion.

Minutes
A group from the Board of Directors of the Bald Eagle Area Association on July 22 met with Hugo City Administrator Bryan Bear and City Engineer Jay Kennedy for an update on the replacement of the dam on Bald Eagle Lake.

The low bid brought the project cost to $820,000, $152,000 over available funds.  Money for the project has come from MNDOT Bridge Fund ($252,000), DNR Dam safety funds ($160,000), Rice Creek Watershed District ($113,000), City of Hugo ($113,000) and St. Paul Regional Water Service ($30,000).

Mr. Bear and Mr. Kennedy have been talking to the organizations to see if they will contribute additional funds.  They feel that there is a likelihood additional monies will be provided but as of now they don’t know if they will be able to make up the shortfall.    Mr. Bear indicated that the hope is that commitments could be obtained within 2 weeks, but cautioned that the City of Hugo has extended a lot of resources to try and get the project completed and that there was a limit on how much more effort will be expended.

Additional issues with completing the project this year include the high water and the need to work out additional details on the permit with the DNR.

BEAA members also discussed investigating DNR listing of Bald Eagle as an impaired water due to Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM) and flowering rush.  Steve McComas (the Lake Detective), Matt Kocian with RCWD and DNR staff will be contacted on how to proceed.  The DNR may have funding for EWM control this year. It was also decided to defer action on the purple loosestrife in the lake.

Photos
Sorry, no photos this time, but if you love the North Shore of Lake Superior like I do, there are three photographers that share great pictures of the North Shore.

Bryan Hansel is a photographer out of Grand Marais.  He posts photos daily on his Facebook page.  Here is his personal web page.  He's one of my favorites.

Paul Sundberg is another photographer from Grand Marais.  He retired as park manager of Gooseberry State Park some years ago.  Here is his personal page.

Christian Dalbec is from Two Harbors.  Christian also shares his work on Facebook. Here is his personal page.


Have a great day,

Jim Moore
BEAA President

4th of July Events

The 4th of July is almost upon us.  I'm sure there will be lots of activity on the lake.  It looks like it will be a perfect day.

 4th of July events to look for:

• Informal annual pontoon race, starting on the SW corner of the lake at 3pm.  It just sort of happens.  No one wants to take ownership.  It's pretty funny to see a bunch of pontoon boats racing around the island.
• I heard desires for a lighted boat parade.  We have had this event in the past, but it has been absent for some years.  I'm going to take a flyer and offer a time and place to meet.  Meet at 9 pm near Ramsey Country Park.  Line up and putt along the shoreline for as long as you wish.  People have gotten generators and used Christmas lights to light up their boats.  Lots of imaginative presentations in the past.  I leave the judging up to you.
• Fireworks display at twilight in the SW corner of the lake.

Water Clarity:

• I measured the lake clarity last Sunday.  I measured 12.5' of clarity. Pretty amazing.

Weed watch:

• I'm not sure it can get much worse and it all washes up on our shoreline.  At present, we have floating weed remnants 35' out from the shoreline.  Luckily, our dock is 140' long and we just walk past it (so far).
• We will be contacting the DNR to see what we can do about the weeds. I doubt there is much.

Purple Loosestrife (PLS):

• We had a PLS bug collection event in early June.  It wasn't very fruitful.  Five of us were there. We ended up giving the bugs to the Brekke's, who have PLS in front of their home.  I'll be checking on it later this summer to see how much they are damaging the plants.

No criminal activity has been reported to me so far.

Sunsets this past month (Click photo to enlarge)