Posted on July 27, 2017
In May, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a draft plan for dealing with the millions of cubic yards of sand and other dredgings it will haul out of the Mississippi River in the Wabasha area over the next 40 years.
The plan calls for depositing much of it on what’s now privately owned land in the Wabasha-Kellogg area and on the Wisconsin side of the river as well, with increased truck traffic, riverfront usage and other impacts on the area.
The Corps says the sand needs to go somewhere — current transfer and permanent storage sites will be filled in less than five years. But public officials in the area and property owners oppose the plan and have proposed alternatives, including building islands in Lake Pepin with the dredgings, that also have generated concern.
At 6:30 p.m. a week from today in the Rochester Public Library auditorium, key people involved in this issue will join us for our next Post Bulletin Dialogue town hall meeting. Wabasha Mayor Rollin Hall, City Administrator Chad Springer, and Kellogg-area farmer Willard Drysdale will join Post Bulletin Executive Editor Jay Furst in leading the discussion. Corps officials have been invited to attend.
Post Bulletin Dialogues are free, informal Q & A sessions about issues in the news. Join us for coffee and good conversation about the Corps plan and how it would affect the Wabasha area and the Mississippi River for decades to come.
If you can’t be there and have questions you want addressed, send email to furst@postbulletin.com.
Source: Post Bulletin
