Posted on June 30, 2021
St. Paul’s largest and arguably most overlooked lake is about to receive 400,000 cubic yards of dredge soil from the Mississippi River.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday that it will use river soil to create six new islands in Pig’s Eye Lake, a 600-acre wetland area that sits across the river from the St. Paul Downtown Airport and south of Lower Afton Road and Battle Creek Regional Park.
Working with Ramsey County, the Army Corps has awarded a $14.7 million contract to LS Marine Inc. of St. Paul to create island and wetland features on Pig’s Eye Lake, including the restoration of marsh habitat and new terrestrial plantings, with the stated benefit of protecting against shoreline erosion.
The four-year project begins in July and is expected to wrap up by the end of 2025.
PROJECT HAS CRITICS, SUPPORTERS
The fill to create the island will include fresh quarry rock, as well as dredge sand and topsoil temporarily stored at Pine Bend, Upper Boulanger and Lower Boulanger islands.
The project is not without its critics. East Side advocates Tom Dimond and Kiki Sonnen said the Army Corps has effectively run out of places to dump polluted soil dredged from the Mississippi upriver from Hastings, and they’ve chosen Pig’s Eye Lake because there is limited public access there and few stakeholders to sound alarm.
“Islands. That’s a nice-sounding name,” said Dimond, leading a recent tour of the lakeshore. “There’s no habitat it serves. It’s piles of pollutant.”
However, Zach Kimmel, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps, said the dredge soil will be capped with two feet of topsoil to create healthy bird habitat. Pollution in river soil removed from navigational channels is not a trivial concern, he said, but the dredge soil in question has been inspected with that in mind.
“We’re very confident the material we’re going to be using is going to be good clean sand,” Kimmel said. “We have established testing protocols with all the regulatory partners we work with along the river. We test material annually.”
Kimmel said that the islands will serve as terrestrial habitat, largely for shorebirds.
Officials with the Friends of the Mississippi River have been supportive of the Corps’ approach.
The Army Corps has chronicled 211 acres of lost shoreline from 1951 to 2015, and predicts another 38 acres will be destroyed by the year 2058. Proponents have said the islands would add new and varied habitat within the lake, including trees, marsh, prairie and sandy areas, while blocking wind and creating a calm, protected area for migrating birds.
“I strongly support this project on its merits,” said Dan McGuiness, a Highwood resident and a retired river ecologist, in written comments shared last year when Ramsey County sought public feedback on the project. McGuiness is the former director of the Audubon Society’s Upper Mississippi River Campaign.
CITY APPROVAL DETERMINED TO NOT BE REQUIRED
St. Paul City Council member Jane Prince said there are arguments for and against adding islands to Pig’s Eye Lake, but public discussion has been muted by a lack of coordinated outreach. She said the city council never approved the project with an official resolution. After noting her concerns, she said, the county and the Army Corps later determined that city approval was not required.
“My issue with the Corps and the county is the dearth of public process on this,” Prince said. “People are on both sides, in terms of ‘this could be a good thing for habitat’ or ‘this could be terrible for the lake.’ They determined there was no downside. This is like the dark ages of public process.”
Others disagree. “I think there’s been significant process,” said Ramsey County Commissioner Trista MatasCastillo. “Our Parks Department did a community process with the Army Corps and brought it to our Parks advisory board. We’re at a point with climate change, and the need to restore wetlands, that we need to move on this.”
In a written statement, Corps of Engineers officials said dredged material “can restore, protect or create aquatic and wetland habitats in connection with construction and maintenance dredging. Beneficial use of dredged material has also been used for upland habitat development, beach nourishment and levee repair and improvement.”
HOME TO HERON, EGRET
Pig’s Eye Regional Park is home to one of the largest urban heron and egret rookeries in the Midwest, as well as many eagles, but it’s dotted by industrial uses that make lake access all but impossible for most visitors, including robot-controlled Canadian Pacific Railway freight train cars and a tree-waste processing facility that sits in front of the trailhead to the river.
More than 110 freight trains pass through the 1950s-era railyard on the east edge of the park daily.
The Red Rock Terminal, located on the south end of Pig’s Eye Lake, encompasses a variety of industrial business for land and barge access.
Ramsey County’s Pig’s Eye Lake Master Plan describes the Pig’s Eye section as part of Battle Creek Regional Park and a backwater of the Mississippi River.
